
ass T^SJSOG. 



)()()K 



i'iii;.si;NTi-:i) by 



\^<^o 







JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



MELIBCEUS-HIPPONAX. 



THE 

BIGLOW PAPERS, 

EDITED, 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, GLOSSARY, 
AND COPIOUS INDEX, 



BY 

HOMER WILBUR, A. M., 

PASTOR OP THB FIRST CHURCH IN JAALAM, AND (PROSPECTIVE) MEMBER 99 
MANY LITERARY, LEARNED AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES, 

{J'or which see page v.) 

V,' 

The ploughman's whistle, or the trivial flute. 
Finds more respect than great Apollo's lute. 

QuarUi's Etnblenis, b, ii. e. 8. 

Margaritas, munde porcine, calcasti : en, siliquas accipe. 

Jac. Car. Fit. ad Pub. Leg. f X. 



NEW YORK: 

HURST & COMPANY, 

PUBLISHERS. 



o 



u? 






Gift from 
Mrs. Etta F. Winter 
Sept. 20 1932 



NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE 



It will not have escaped the attentive eye, that I have, 
on the title-page, omitted those honorary appendages to the 
editorial name which not only add greatly to the value of 
every book, but whet and exacerbate the appetite of the 
reader. For not only does he surmise that an honorary 
membership of literary and scientific societies imphes a cer- 
tain amount of necessary distinction on the part of the re- 
cipient of such decorations, but he is willing to trust himself 
more entirely to an author who writes under the fearful re- 
sponsibility of involving the reputation of such bodies as the 
S. Archcpoi. Dahotn. , or the Acad. Lit. et Scient. Kamtschat. 
I cannot but think that the early editions of Shakspeare and 
Milton would have met with more rapid and general ac- 
ceptance, but for the barrenness of their respective title- 
pages ; and I believe, that, even now, a publisher of the 
works of either of those justly distinguished men would find 
his account in procuring their admission to the membership 
of learned bodies on the Continent, — a proceeding no whit 
more incongruous than the reversal of the judgment against 
Socrates, when he was already more than twenty centuries 
beyond the reach of antidotes, and when his memory had 
acquired a deserved respectability. I conceive that it was 
a feeling of the importance of this precaution which induced 
Mr. Locke to style himself " Gent." on the title-page of his 
Essay, as who should say to his readers that they could re- 
ceive his metaphysics on the honor of a gentleman. 

(3) 



4 NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE. 

Nevertheless, finding, that, without descending to a 
smaller size of type than would have been compatible with 
the dignity of the several societies to be named, I could not 
compress my intended list within the limits of a single page, 
and thinking, moreover, that the act would carry with it an 
air of decorous modesty, I have chosen to take the reader 
aside, as it were, into my private closet, and there not only 
exhibit to him the diplomas which I already possess, but 
also to furnish him with a prophetic vision of those which I 
may, without undue presumption, hope for, as not beyond 
the reach of human ambition and attainment. And I am 
the rather induced to this from the fact, that my name has 
been unaccountably dropped from the last triennial cata- '' 
logue of our beloved A/ma Mater. Whether this is to be 
attributed to the difficulty of Latinizing any of those honor- 
ary adjuncts (with a complete Hst of which I took care to 
furnish the proper persons nearly a year beforehand), or 
whether it had its origin in any more culpable motives, I 
forbear to consider in this place, the matter being in course 
of painful investigation. But, however this may be, I felt 
the omission the more keenly, as I had, in expectation of 
the new catalogue, enriched the library of the Jaalam Athe- 
naeum with the old one then in my possession, by which 
means it has come about that my children will be deprived 
of a never-wearying winter-evening's amusement in looking 
out the name of their parent in that distinguished roll. 

Those harmless innocents had at least committed no 

but I forbear, having intrusted my reflections and animad- 
versions on this painful topic to the safe-keeping of my pri- 
vate diary, intended for posthumous publication. I state 
this fact here, in order that certain nameless individuals, 
who are, perhaps, overmuch congratulating themselves 
upon my silence, may know that a rod is in pickle which 



NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE. O 

the vigorous hand of a justly incensed posterity will apply 
to their memories. 

The careful reader will note, that, in the list which I 
have prepared, I have included the names of several Cisat- 
hintic societies to which a place is not commonly assigned 
in processions of this nature. I have ventured to do this, 
not only to encourage native ambition and genius, but also 
because I have never been able to perceive in what way 
distance (unless we suppose them at the end of a lever) 
could increase the weight of learned bodies. As far as I 
have been able to extend my researches among such stuffed 
specimens as occasionally reach America, I have discovered 
no generic difference between the antipodal Fogrum yapon' 
iciim and the F. Americanum sufficiently common in our 
own immediate neighborhood. Yet, with a becoming def- 
erence to the popular belief, that distinctions of this sort are 
enhanced in value by every additional mile they travel, I 
have intermixed the names of some tolerably distant literary 
and other associations with the rest. 

I add here, also, an advertisement, which, that it may be 
the more readily understood by those persons especially in- 
terested therein, I have written in that curtailed and other- 
wise maltreated canine Latin, to the writing and reading of 
which they are accustomed. 

Omnib. per tot. Orb. Terrar. Catalog. Academ. Edd. 

Minim, gent, diplom. ab inclytiss. acad. vest, orans, vir. 
honorand. operosiss., at sol. ut sciat. quant, glor. nom, 
meum (dipl. fort, concess.) catal. vest. temp, futur. affer., 
ill. subjec, addit. omnib. titul. honorar. qu. adh. non tanL 
opt. quam probab. put. 

\* Litt. Uncial, distinx. ut PrcBs. S. Hist. Nat. JaaL 



6 NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE. 

HOMERUS WILBUR, Mr., Episc. Jaalam. S. T. D. 
1850, et Yal. 1849, et Neo-Caes. et Brun. et Gulielm. 1852, 
et Gul. et Mar. et Bowd. et Georgiop. et Viridimont. et 
Columb. Nov. Ebor. 1853, et Amherst, et Watervill. et S. 
Jarlath. Hib. et S. Mar. et S. Joseph, et S. And. Scot. 
1854, et Nashvill. et Dart, et Dickins. et Concord, et Wash, 
et Columbian, et Chariest, et Jeff, et Dubl. et Oxon. et 
Cantab, et caet. 1855, P. U. N. C. H. et J. U. D. Gott. et 
Osnab. et Heidelb. i860, et Acad. Bore us. Berolin. Soc. 
et SS. RR.^ Lbgd. Bat. et Patav. et Lond. et Edinb. et Ins. 
Feejee. et Null. Terr, et Pekin. Soc. Hon. et S. H. S. et S. 
P. A. et A. A. S. et S. Humb. Univ. et S. Omn. Rer. Quar- 
und. q. Aliar. Promov. Passamaquod. et H. P. C. et I. O. 
H. et A. A. *. et II. K. P. et *. B. K. et Peucin. et Erosoph. 
et Philadelph. et Frat. in Unit, et 2. T. et S. Archseolog. 
Athen. et Acad. Scient. et Lit. Panorm. et SS. R. H^ 
Matrit. et Beeloochist. et Caffrar. et Caribb. et M. S. Reg. 
Paris, et S. Am. Antiserv. Soc. Hon. et P. D. Gott. et LL. 
D. 1852, et D. C. L. et Mus. Doc. Oxon. i860, et M. M. 
S. S. et M. D. 1854, et Med. Fac. Univ. Harv. Soc. et S. 
pro Convers. Pollywog. Soc. Hon. et Higgl. Piggl. et LL. 
B. 1853, et S. pro Christianiz. Moschet. Soc, et SS. Ante- 
Diluv. ubiq. Gent. Soc. Hon. et Givit. Cleric. Jaalam. et S. 
pro Diffus. General. Tenebr. Secret. Corr. 



NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 



[I HAVE observed, reader, (bene-or male-volent, as it 
may happen,) that it is customary to append to the second 
editions of books, and to the second works of authors, short 
sentences commendatory of the first, under the title of 
Notices of the Press. These, I have been given to under- 
stand, are procurable at certain estabhshed rates, payment 
being made either in money or advertising patronage by the 
publisher, or by an adequate outlay of servility on the part 
of the author. Considering these things with myself, and 
also that such notices are neither intended, nor generally be- 
lieved, to convey any real opinions, being a purely 
ceremonial accompaniment of literature, and resembling 
certificates to the virtues of various morbiferal panaceas, I 
conceived that it would be not only more economical to pre- 
pare a sufficient number of such myself, but also more im- 
mediately subservient to the end in view to prefix them to 
this our primary edition rather than await the contingency 
of a second, when they would seem to be of small utility. 
To delay attaching the bobs until the second attempt at fly- 
ing the kite would indicate but a slender experience in that 
useful art. Neither has it escaped my notice, nor failed to 
afford me matter of reflection, that, when a circus or a 
caravan is about to visit Jaalam, the initial step is to send 
forward large and highly ornamented bills of performance 
to be hung in the barroom and the post office. These having 
been sufficiently gazed at, and beginning to lose their attract* 

(7) 



>* NOTICES OP AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 

'iveness except for the flies, and, truly, the boys also, (in 
whom I find it impossible to repress, even during school- 
hours, certain oral and telegraphic correspondences concern- 
ing the expected show,) upon some fine morning the band 
enters in a gaily-painted wagon, or triumphal chariot, and 
with noisy advertisement, by means of brass, wood, and 
sheepskin, makes the circuit of our startled village-streets. 
Then, as the exciting sounds draw nearer and nearer, do I 
desiderate those eyes of Aristarchus, " whose looks were as 
a breeching to a boy." Then do I perceive, with vain re- 
gret of wasted opportunities, the advantage of a pancratic 
or pantechnic education, since he is most reverenced by my 
little subjects who can throw the cleanest summerset or walk 
most securely upon the revolving cask. The story of the 
Pied Piper becomes for the first time credible to me, (albeit 
confirmed by the Hameliners dating their legal instruments 
from the period of his exit,) as I behold how those strains, 
without pretence of magical potency, bewitch the pupillary 
legs, nor leave to the pedagogic an entire self-control. For 
these reasons, lest my kingly prerogative should suffer 
diminution, I prorogue my restless commons, whom I also 
follow into the street, chiefly lest some mischief may chance 
befall them. After the manner of such a band, I send for- 
ward the following notices of domestic manufacture, to make 
brazen proclamation, not unconscious of the advantage 
which will accrue, if our little craft, cy77ihula sutilis, shall 
seem to leave port with a clipping breeze, and to carry, in 
nautical phrase, a bone in her mouth. Nevertheless, I have 
chosen, as being more equitable, to prepare some also suffi- 
ciently objurgatory, that readers of every taste may find a 
dish to their palate. I have modelled them upon actually 
existing specimens, preserved in my own cabinet of natural 
curiosities. One, in particular, I had copied with tolerable 



NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 9 

exactness from a notice of one of my own discourses, which, 
from its superior tone and appearance of vast experience, I 
concluded to have been written by a man at least three hun- 
dred years of age, though I recollected no existing instance 
of such antediluvian longevity. Nevertheless, I afterward 
discovered the author to be a young gentleman preparing 
for the ministry under the direction of one of my brethren in 
a neighboring town, and whom I had once instinctively cor- 
rected in a Latin quantity. But this I have been forced to 
omit, from its too great length. — H. W.] 



From the Universal Littery Universe. 

Full of passages which rivet the attention of the reader . . . 
Under a rustic garb, sentiments are conveyed which should be 
committed to the memory and engraven on the heart of every moral 
and social being . . . We consider this a unique performance 
, . . We hope to see it soon introduced into our common schools 
. . . Mr. Wilbur has performed his duties as editor with excellent 
taste and judgment . . . This is a vein which we hope to see suc- 
cessfully prosecuted . . . We hail the appearance of this work as 
a long stride toward the formation of a purely aboriginal, indigenous, 
native, and American literature. We rejoice to meet with an 
author national enough to break away from the slavish deference, 
too common among us, to English grammar and orthography . . . 
Where all is so good, we are at a loss how to make extracts, 
. . . On the whole, we may call it a volume which no library, 
pretending to entire completeness, should fail to place upon its 
shelves. 



From the Higginbottomopolis Snapping-turtle. 

A collection of the merest balderdash and doggerel that it was 
ever our bad fortune to lay eyes on. The author is a vulgar buf- 



10 NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 

foon, and the editor a talkative, tedious old fool. We use strong 
language, but should any of our readers peruse the book, (from 
which calamity Heaven preserve them!) they will find reasons for 
it thick as the leaves of Vallumbrozer, or, to use a still more ex- 
pressive comparison, as the combined heads of author and editor. 
The work is wretchedly got up . . . We should like to know how 
much British gold was pocketed by this libeller of our country and 
her purest patriots. 



From the OldfogrumvilU Mentor, \ 

We have not had time to do more than glance through thisi 
handsomely printed volume, but the name of its respectable editor, 
the Rev. Mr. Wilbur, of Jaalam, will afford a sufficient guaranty 
for the worth of its contents . . . The paper is white, the type 
clear, and the volume of a convenient and attractive size ... In 
reading this elegantly executed work, it has seemed to us that a 
passage or two might have been retrenched with advantage, and 
that the general style of diction was susceptible of a higher polish 
, . . On the whole, we may safely leave the ungrateful task of 
criticism to the reader. We will barely suggest, that in volumes 
intended, as this is, for the illustration of a provincial dialect and 
turns of expression, a dash of humor or satire might be thrown in 
with advantage . . . The work is admirably got up . . . This 
work will form an appropriate ornament to the centre-table. It is 
beautifully printed, on paper of an excellent quality. f 



From the Dekay Btihvark. 

We should be wanting in our duty as the conductor of that 
tremendous engine, a public press, as an American, and as a man, 
did we allow such an opportunity as is presented to us by " The 
Biglow Papers " to pass by without entering our earnest protest 



NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 11 

against such attempts (now, alas ! too common) at demoralizing 
the public sentiment. Under a wretched mask of stupid drollery, 
slavery, war, the social glass, and, in short, all the valuable and 
time-honored institutions justly dear to our coumion humanity and 
especially to republicans, are made the butt of coarse and senseless 
ribaldry by this low-minded scribbler. It is time that the respect- 
able and religious portion of our community should be aroused to 
the alarming inroads of foreign Jacobinism, sansculottism, and in- 
fidelity. It is a fearful proof of the widespread nature of this con- 
tagion, that these secret stabs at religion and virtue are given from 
under the cloak [crediie, posteri !') of a clergyman. It is a mourn- 
ful spectacle indeed to the patriot and Christian to see liberality 
and new ideas (falsely so called, — they are as old as Eden) invad- J 
ing the sacred precincts of the pulpit . . . On the whole, we con- 
sider this volume as one of the first shocking results which we 
predicted would spring out of the late French «' Revolution " (!) 



From the Bungtown Copper and Comprehensive Tocsin (a try- 
weakly family journal'). 

Altogether an admirable work . . . Full of humor, boisterous, 
but delicate, — of wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a 
pathos cool as morning dew, — of satire ponderous as the mace of 
Richard, yet keen as the scymitar of Saladin ... A work full of 
" mountain-mirth," mischievous as Puck and lightsome as Ariel . . . 
We know not whether to admire most the genial, fresh, and dis- 
cursive concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, weird imagi- 
nation, and compass of style, at once both objective and subjective 
. . . We might indulge in some criticisms, but, were the author 
other than he is, he would be a different being. As it is, he has a 
wonderful pose^ which flits from flower to flower, and bears the 
reader irresistibly along on its eagle pinions (like Ganymede) to 
the '* highest heaven of invention." . . . We love a book so 
purely objective . . . Many of his pictures of natural scenery have 



12 NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 

an extraordinary subjective clearness and fidelity ... In fine, we 
consider this as one of the most extraordinary volumes of this or 
any age. We know of no English author who could have written 
it. It is a work to which the proud genius of our country, stand- 
ing with one foot on the Aroostook and the other on the Rio 
Grande, and holding up the star-spangled banner amid the wreck 
of matter and the crush of worlds, may point with bewildering 
scorn of the punier efforts of enslaved Europe . . . We hope soon 
to encounter our author among those higher walks of literature in 
which lie is evidently capable of achieving enduring fame. Al- 
ready we should be inclined to assign him a high position in the 
bright galaxy of our American bards. 



From the Saltriver Pilot and Flag of Freedom. 

A volume in bad grammar and worse taste . . . While the 
pieces here collected were confined to their appropriate sphere in 
the corners of obscure newspapers, we considered them wholly be- 
neath contempt, but, as the author has chosen to come forward in 
this public manner, he must expect the lash he so richly merits 
. . . Contemptible slanders . . . Vilest Billingsgate . . . Has 
raked all the gutters of our language . . . The most pure, up- 
right, and consistent politicians not safe from his malignant venom 
. . . General Gushing comes in for a share of his vile carlumnies 
, . . the Reverend Homer Wilbur is a disgrace to his cloth . . . 



From the World-Harmonic-^olian-Attachment. 

Speech is silver : silence is golden. No utterance more Orphic 
than this. While, therefore, as highest author, we reverence him 
whose works continue heroically unwritten, we have also our hope- 
ful word for those who with pen (from wing of goose loud-cack- 
ling, or seraph God-commissioned) record the thing that is re* 



NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 13 

vealed . . , Under mask of quaintest irony, we detect here the 
deep, storm-tost (nigh shipwrecked) soul, thunder-scarred, semiartic- 
ulate, but ever climbing hopefully toward the peaceful summits of 
an Infinite Sorrow . . . Yes, thou poor, forlorn Hosea, with 
Hebrew fire-flaming soul in thee, for thee also this life of ours has 
not been without its aspects of heavenliest pity and laughingest 
mirth. Conceivable enough ! Through coarse Thersites-cloak, 
we have revelation of the heart, wild-glowing, world-clasping, that 
is in him. Bravely he grapples with the life-problem as it presents 
itself to him, uncombed, shaggy, careless of the '* nicer proprieties," 
inexpert of "elegant diction," yet with voice audible enough to 
whoso hath ears, up there on the gravelly side-hills, or down on the 
splashy, Indiarubber-like salt-marshes of native Jaalam. To this 
soul also the Necessity of Creating somewhat has unveiled its 
awful front. If not CEdipuses and Electras and Alcestises, then in 
God's name Birdofredum Sawins ! These also shall get born into 
the world, and filch (if so need) a Zingali subsistence therein, 
these lank, omnivorous Yankees of his. He shall paint the Seen, 
since the Unseen will not sit to him. Yet in him also are Nibe- 
lungen-lays, and Iliads, and Ulysses-wanderings, and Divine 
Comedies, — if only once he could come at them! Therein lies 
much, nay all ; for what truly is this which we name All, but that 
which we do not possess ? . . . Glimpses also are given us of an 
old father Ezekiel, not without paternal pride, as is the wont of 
such. A brown, parchment-hided old man of the geoponic or 
bucolic species, gray-eyed, we fancy, <7«<f«^^ perhaps, with much 
weather-cunning and plentiful September-gale memories, bidding, 
fair in good time to become the Oldest Inhabitant. After such 
hasty apparition, he vanishes and is seen no more . . . Of " Rev. 
Homer Wilbur, A. M., Pastor of the First Church in Jaalam," we 
have small care to speak here. Spare touch in him of his Melesi- 
genes namesake, save, haply, the — blindness ! A tolerably calig- 
inose, nephelegeretous elderly gentleman, with infinite faculty of 
sermonizing, muscularized by long practice, and excellent digestive 



14 NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 

apparatus, and, for the rest, well-meaning enough, and with small 
private illuminations (somewhat tallowy, it is to be feared) of his own. 
To him, there, '• Pastor of the First Church in Jaalani," our Hosea 
presents himself as a quite inexplicable Sphinx-riddle. A rich 
poverty of Latin and Greek, — so far is clear enough, even to eyes 
peering myopic through horn-lensed editorial spectacles, — but 
naught farther? O pur-blind, well-meaning, altogether fuscous 
Melesigenes-Wilbur, there are things in him incommunicable by 
stroke of birch! Did it ever enter that old bewildered head of 
thine that there was the Possibility of the Infinite in him ? To 
thee, quite wingless (and even featherless) biped, has not so much 

.even as a dream of wings ever come ? " Talented young parish- 
ioner " ? Among the Arts whereof thou art Magister, does 

' that of seeing happen to be one ? Unhappy Artittm Magister ! 
Somehow a Nemean lion, fulvous, torrid-eyed, dry-nursed in broad- 
howling sand-wildernesses of a sufficiently rare spirit-Libya (it may 
be supposed) has got whelped among the sheep. Already be 
stands wild-glaring, with feet clutching the ground as with oak- 
roots, gathering for a Remus-spring over the walls of thy little fold. 
In Heaven's name, go not near him with that fly-bite crook of 
thine! In good time, thou painful preacher, thou wilt go to the 
appointed place of departed Artillery-Election Sermons, Right- 
Hands, of Fellowship, and Results of Councils, gathered to thy 
spiritual fathers with much Latin of the Epitaphial sort ; thou, too, 
shalt have thy reward; but on him the Eumenides have looked, not 
Xantippes of the pit, snake-tressed, finger-threatening, but radiantly 
calm as on antique gems ; for him paws impatient the winged 
courser of the gods, champing unwelcome bit ; him the starry 
deeps, the empyrean glooms, and far-flashing splendors await. 



From the Onion Grove Phanix. 

A talented young townsman of ours, recently returned from a 
Continental tour, and who is already favorably known to our readers 



NOTICES OP AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 16 

by his sprightly letters from abroad which have graced our columns, 
called at our office yesterday. We learn from him, that, having en- 
joyed tlie distinguished privilege, while in Germany, of an intro- 
duction to the celebrated Von Humbug, he took the opportunity to 
present that eminent man with a copy of the ♦' Biglow Papers." 
The next morning he received the following note, which he has 
kindly furnished us for publication. We prefer to print verba- 
tim, knowing that our readers will readily forgive the few errors 
into which the illustrious writer has fallen, through ignorance of 
our language. 

« High-Worthy Mister ! 

«< I shall also now especially happy starve, because I have more 
or less a work of one those aboriginal Red-Men seen in which 
have I so deaf an interest ever taken fullworthy on the self shelf 
with our Gottsched to be upset. 

« Pardon my in the English-speech unpractice ! 

"Von Humbug." 

He also sent with the above note a copy of his famous work on 
«* Cosmetics," to be presented to Mr. Biglow ; but this was taken 
from our friend by the English customhouse officers, probably 
through a petty national spite. No doubt, it has by this time found 
its way into the British Museum. We trust this outrage will be ex- 
posed in all our American papers. We shall do our best to bring 
it to the notice of the State Department. Our numerous readers 
will share in the pleasure we experience at seeing our young and 
' vigorous national literature thus encouragingly patted on the head 
by this venerable and world-renowned German. We love to see 
these reciprocations of good-feeling between the different branches 
of the great Anglo-Saxon race. 

[The following genuine " notice " having met my eye, I 
gladly insert a portion of it here, the more especially as it 



16 NOTICES OP AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 

contains a portion of one of Mr. Biglow's poems not else- 
where printed. — H. W.J 



From the Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss, 

. . . But, while we lament to see our young townsman thus 
mingling in the heated contests of party politics, we think we de- 
tect in him the presence of talents which, if properly directed, 
might give an innocent pleasure to many. As a proof that he is 
competent to the production of other kinds of poetry, we copy for 
our readers a short fragment of a pastoral by him, the manuscript 
of which was loaned us by a friend. The title of it is " The 
Courtin'." 

Zekle crep' up, quite unbeknown, 

An' peeked in thru the winder, 
An' there sot Huldy all alone, 

*ith no one nigh to hender. 

Agin' the chimbly crooknecks hung. 

An' in amongst 'em rusted 
The ole queen's arm thet gran'ther Young 

Fetched back frum Concord busted. 

The wannut logs shot sparkles out 

Toward the pootiest, bless her ! 
An' leetle fires danced all about 

The chiny on the dresser. 

The very room, coz she wuz in. 
Looked warm frum floor to ceilin', 

An' see looked full ez rosy agin 
Ez th' apples she wuz peelin'. 



NOTICES OP AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. IT 

She heerd a foot an' knowed it, tu, 

Araspin' on the scraper, — 
All ways to once her feelins flew 

Like sparks in burnt-up paper. 

He kin' o' I'ltered on the mat, 

Some doubtfle o' the seekle; 
His heart kep' goin' pitypat. 

But hern went pity Zekle. 



Satis multis sese emptores futures libri professis, Georg- 
ius Nichols, Cantabrigiensis, opus emittet de parte gravi sed 
adhuc neglecta historiae naturahs, cum titulo sequent!, vide- 
licet : 

Conatus ad Delineationem naturalem nonnihil perfeciiorem 
Scarabcri Bombilatoris, vulgo dicH Humbug, ab Homero 
I Wilbur, Artium Magistro, Societatis historico-naturalis 
' Jaalamensis Praeside, (Secretario, Socioque (eheu !) singulo,) 
multarumque aliarum Societatum eruditarum (sive inerudi- 
tarum) tarn domesticarum quam transmarinarum Socio — 
forsitan futuro. 

PROEMIUM. 

Lectori Benevolo S. 

Toga scholastica nondum deposita, quum systemata varia 
entomologica, a viris ejus scientiae cultoribus studiosissimis 
summa diligentia aedificata, penitus indagassem, non fuit 
quin luctuose omnibus in iis, quamvis aliter laude dignissi- 
mis, hiatum magni momenti perciperem. Tunc, nescio quo 
,motu superiore impulsus, aut qua captus dulcedine operis, 
ad eum implendum (Curtius alter) me solemniter devovi. 
Nee ab isto labore, ioi/jioi'tw? imposito, abstinui antequani 
tractatulum sufficienter inconcinnum lingua vernacula per- 
feceram. Inde, juveniliter tumefactus, et barathro ineptiae 
Til/ /Si^Aion-wAdf (necnon " Publici Legentis") nusquam ex- 
plorato, me composuisse quod quasi placentas praefervidas 
(ut sic dicam) homines ingurgitarent credidi. Sed, quum 
huic et alii bibliopolae MSS. mea submisissem et nihil solid- 

(19) 



20 PROEM I UM. 

ius responsione valde negativa in Musccum meum retulissem, 
horror ingens atque misericordia, ob crassitudinem Lamber- 
tianam in cerebris homunculorum istius muneris coelesti 
quadam ira infixam, me invasere. Extemplo niei solius 
impensis librum edere decrevi, nihil omnino dubitans quin 
" Mundus Scientificus " (ut aiunt) crumenam meam ampli- 
ter repleret. Nullam, attamen, ex agro illo meo parvulo 
segetem demessui, praeter gaudium vacuum bene de Re- 
publica merendi. Iste panis mens pretiosus super aquas 
literarias feculentas prsefidenter jactus, quasi Harpyiarum 
quarundam (scilicet bibliopolarum istorum facinorosorum 
supradictorum) tactu rancidus, intra perpaucos dies mihi 
domum rediit. Et, quum ipse tali victu ali non tolerarem, 
primum in mentem venit pistori (typographo nempe) nihi- 
lominus solvendum esse. Animum non idcirco demisi, imo 
aeque ac pueri naviculas suas penes se lino retinent (eo ut e 
recto cursu delapsas ad ripam retrahant), sic ego Argo 
meam chartaceam fluctibus laborantem a qua^situ velleris 
aurei, ipse potius tonsus pelleque exutus, mente solidarevo- 
cavi. Metaphoram ut mutem, boomarangam meam a scopo 
aberrantem retraxi, dum majore vi, occasione ministrante, 
adversus Fortunam intorquerem. Ast mihi, talia volventi, 
et, sicut Saturnus ille 7rat5o/36pos, liberos intellectus mei de- 
pascere fidenti, casus miserandus, nee antea inauditus, su- 
pervenit. Nam, ut ferunt Scythas pietatis causa et parsi- 
monias, parentes suos mortuos devorasse, sic filius hie mens 
primogenitus, Scythis ipsis minus mansuetus, patrem vivum 
totum et calcitrantem exsorbere enixus est. Nee tamen hac 
de causa sobolem meam esurientem exheredavi. Sed famem 
istam pro vahdo testimonio virilitatis roborisque potius 
habui, cibumque ad earn satiandam, salva paterna mea 
carne, petii. Et quia bilem illam scaturientem ad aes etiam 
concoquendum idoneam esse estimabam, unde res alienum, 



PROEMIUM. 2 1 

ut minoris pretii, haberem, circumspexi. Rebus ita se ha- 
bentibus, ab avunculo meo Johanne Doolittle, Armigero, 
impetravi ut pecunias necessarias suppeditaret, ne opus esset 
mihi univei'sitatem relinquendi antequam ad gradum primum 
in artibus pervenissem. Tunc ego, salvum facere patronum 
meum munificum maxime cupiens, omnes libros prim?e edi- 
tionis operis mei non venditos una cum privilegio in omne 
asvum ejusdem imprimendi et edendi avunculo meo dicto 
pigneravi. Ex illo die, atro lapide notando, curae vocifer- 
antes familise singulis annis crescentis eo usque insultabant 
ut nunquam tarn carum pignus e vinculis istis aheneis sol- 
vere possem. 

Avunculo vero nuper mortuo, quum inter alios consan- 
guineos testamenti ejus lectionem audiendi causa advenissem, 
erectis auribus verba talia sequentia accepi : — " Quoniam 
persuasum habeo meum dilectum nepotem Homerum, longa 
et intima rerum angustarum domi experientia, aptissimum 
esse qui divitias tueatur, beneficenterque ac prudenter iis 
divinis creditis utatur, — ergo, motus hisce cogitationibus, 
exque amore meo in ilium magno, do, legoque nepoti caro 
meo supranominato omnes singularesque istas possessiones 
nee ponderabiles nee computabiles meas quae sequuntur, 
scilicet: quingentos libros quos mihi pigneravit dictus Ho- 
merus, anno lucis 1792, cum privilegio edendi et repetendi 
opus istud • scientificum ' (quod dicunt) suum, si sic elegerit. 
Tamen D. O. M. precor oculos Homeri nepotis niei ita 
aperiat eumque moveat, ut libros istos in bibliotheca unius 
e plurimis castellis suis Hispaniensibus tuto abscondat. " 

His verbis (vix credibilibus) auditis, cor meum in pectore 
exsultavit. Deinde, quoniam tractatus Anglice scriptus 
spem auctoris fefellerat, quippe quum studium Historiae 
Naturalis in Republica nostra inter factionis strepitum lan- 
guescat, Latine versum edere statui, et eo potius quia nescio 



22 PROEMIUM. 

quomodo disciplina academica et duo diplomata proficiant, 
nisi quod peritos linguarum omnino mortuarum (et damnan- 
darum, ut dicebat iste navovpyo^ Gulielmus Cobbett) nos 
faciant. 

Et mihi adhuc superstes est tota ilia editio prima, quam 
quasi crepitaculum per quod dentes caninos dentibam 
retineo. 



OPERIS SPECIMEN. 
(Ad exemplum jfohannis Physiophili specimiins Monackologice.') 

12. S. B. Miittaris, 'WlLBVR. Carni/ex, Jablo^sk. Prof anus ^ 

Desfont. 

[Male hancce speciem Cyclopem Fabricius vocat, ut qui singulo 
oculo ad quod sui interest distinguitur. Melius vero Isaacus Cutis 
nullum inter S. milit. S. que Belzebul (Fabric. 152) discrimen 
esse defendit,] 

Habitat civitat. Americ. austral. 

Aureis lineis splendidus; plerumque tamen sordidus, utpote 
lanienas valde frequentans, foetore sanguinis allectus. Amat quoque 
insuper septa apricari, neque inde, nisi maxima conatione, detrudi- 
tur. Candidatus ergo populariter vocatus. Caput cristam quasi 
pennarum ostendit. Pro cibo vaccam publicam callide niulget ; 
abdomen enorme ; facultas suctus baud facile estimanda. Otiosus, 
fatuus; ferox nihilominus, semperque dimicare paratus. Tortuose 
repit. 

Capite ssepe maxima cum cura dissecto, ne illud rudimentuin 
etiam cerebri commune omnibus prope insectis detegere poteram. 

Unam de hoc S. milit. rem singularem notavi ; nam S. Guineens, 
(Fabric. 143) servos facit, et idcirco a multis summa in reverentia 
habitus, quasi scintillas rationis psene humanae demonstrans. 



PROEMIUM. 2S 

24. S. B. CriticuSf Wilbur. Zoilus^ Fabric. Pygmaust. 

Carlsen. 

[Stultissime Johannes Stryx cum S. punctato (Fabric. 64-l09> 
confundit. Specimina quamplurima scrutationi microscopicae sub- 
jeci, nunquam tamen unum ulla indicia puncti cujusvis prorsus 
ostendentem inveni.] 

Praecipue formidolosus, insectatusque, in proxima rima anonyma 
sese abscondit, we, we, creberrime stridens. Ineptus, segnipes. 

Habitat ubique gentium ; in sicco ; nidum suum terebratione 
Indefessa aedificans. Cibus. Libros depascit; siccos praecipue 
seligens, et forte succidum. 



INTRODUCTION. 



When, more than three years ago, my talented 
young parishioner, Mr. Biglow, came to me and 
submitted to my animadversions the first of his 
poems which he intended to commit to the more 
hazardous trial of a city newspaper, it never so 
much as entered my imagination to conceive that 
his productions would ever be gathered into a fair 
volume, and ushered into the august presence of the 
reading public by myself. So little are we short- 
sighted mortals able to predict the event ! I con- 
fess that there is to me a quite new satisf^iction in 
being associated (though only as sleeping partner) 
in a book which can stand by itself in an independ- 
ent unity on the shelves of libraries. For there is 
always this drawback from the pleasure of printing 
a sermon, that, whereas the queasy stomach of this 
generation will not bear a discourse long enough to 
make a separate volume, those religious and godly- 
minded children (those Samuels, if I may call them 
so) of the brain must at first lie buried in an undis- 
tinguished heap, and then get such resurrection as 
is vouchsafed to them, mummy-wrapt with a score 
of others in a cheap binding, with no other mark 

(25; 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

of distinction than the word " Miscellafteous " printed 
upon the back. Far be it from me to claim any 
credit for the quite unexpected popularity which I 
am pleased to find these bucolic strains have at- 
tained unto. If I know myself, I am measurably 
free from the itch of vanity ; yet I may be allowed 
to say that I was not backward to recognize in them 
a certain wild, puckery, acidulous (sometimes even 
verging toward that point which, in our rustic 
phrase, is termed shut-eye) flavor, not wholly un- 
pleasing, nor unwholesome, to palates cloyed with 
the sugariness of tamed and cultivated fruit. It 
may be, also, that some touches of my own, here 
and there, may have led to their wider acceptance, 
albeit solely from my larger experience of literature 
and authorship.* 

I was, at first, inclined to discourage Mr. Biglow's 
attempts, as knowing that the desire to poetize is 
one of the diseases naturally incident to adolescence, 
which, if the fitting remedies be not at once and 
with a bold hand applied, may become chronic, and 
render one, who might else have become in due 
time an ornament of the social circle, a painful ob- 

* The reader curious in such matters may refer (if he can find 
them) to " A Sermon Preached on the Anniversary of the Dark 
Day," " An Artillery Election Sermon," " A Discourse on the Late 
Eclipse," " Dorcas, a Funeral Sermon on the Death of Madam 
Submit Tidd, Relict of the late Experience Tidd, Esq.," &c., &C. 



INTRODUCTION. 2T 

ject even to nearest friends and relatives. But 
thinking, on a further experience, that there was a 
germ of promise in him which required onty cul- 
ture and the pulling up of weeds from around it, I 
thought it best to set before him the acknowledged 
examples of English compositions in verse, and 
leave the rest to natural emulation. With this view, 
I accordingly lent him some volumes of Pope and 
Goldsmith, to the assiduous study of which he prom- 
ised to devote his evenings. Not long afterward, he 
brought me some verses written upon that model, a 
specimen of which I subjoin, having changed some 
phrases of less elegancy, and a few rhymes objec- 
tionable to the cultivated ear. The poem consisted 
of childish reminiscences, and the sketches which 
follow will not seem destitute of truth to those 
whose fortunate education began in a country vil- 
lage. And, first, let us hang up his charcoal por- 
trait of the school-dame. 

" Propt on the marsh, a dwelling now, I see 
The humble schoolhouse of my A, B, C, 
Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his tire, 
Waited in ranks the wished command to fire, 
Then all together, when the signal came, 
Discharged their a-b abs against tlie dame, 
Who, 'mid the volleyed learning, firm and calm, 
Patted the furloughed ferule on her palm. 
And, to our wonder, could detect at once 
Who flashed the pan, and who was downright dunce. 



28 INTRODUCTION. 

There young Devotion learned to climb with ease 
The gnarly limbs of Scripture family-trees, 
And he was most commended and admired 
Who soonest to the topmost twig perspired ; 
Eacli name was called as many various ways 
As pleased the reader's ear on different days, 
So that the weather, or the ferule's stings, 
Colds in the head, or fifty other things, 
Transformed the helpless Hebrew thrice a week 
To guttural Pequot or resounding Greek, 
The vibrant accent skipping here and there, 
Just as it pleased invention or despair ; 
No controversial Hebraist was the Dame ; 
With or without the points pleased her the same ; 
If any tyro found a name too tough. 
And looked at her, pride furnished skill enough ; 
She nerved her larnyx for the desperate thing, 
And cleared the five-barred syllables at a spring. 

Ah, dear old times ! there once it was my hap, 
Perched on a stool, to wear the long-eared cap ; 
From books degraded, there I sat at ease, 
A drone, the envy of compulsory bees." 

I add only one further extract, which will possess 
a melancholy interest to all such as have endeav- 
ored to glean the materials of Revolutionary his- 
tory from the lips of aged persons, who took a part 
in the actual making of it, and, finding the manu- 
facture profitable, continued the supply in an ade- 
quate proportion to the demand. 

" Old Joe is gone, who saw hot Percy goad 
His slow artillery up the Concord road, 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

A tale vvliich grew in wonder, year by year, 
As, every time he told it, Joe drew near 
To the main fight, till, faded and grown gray, 
The original scene to bolder tints gave way ; 
Then Joe had heard the foe's scared double-quick 
Beat on stove drum with one uncaptured stick, 
And, ere death came the lengthening tale to lop, 
Himself had fired, and seen a red-coat drop ; 
Had Joe lived long enough, that scrambling fight 
Had squared more nearly to his sense of right, 
And vanquished Percy, to complete the tale, 
Had hammered stone for life in Concord jail." 

I do not know that the foregoing extracts ought 
not to be called my own rather than Mr. Biglow's, 
as, indeed, he maintained stoutly that my file had 
left nothing of his in them. I should not, perhaps, 
have felt entitled to take so great liberties with 
them, had I not more than suspected an hereditary 
vein of poetry in myself, a very near ancestor hav- 
ing written a Latin poem in the Harvard Gratidatio 
on the accession of George the Third. Suffice it to 
say, that, whether not satisfied with such limited ap- 
probation as I could conscientiously bestow, or from 
a sense of natural inaptitude, I know not, certain it 
is that my young friend could never be induced to 
any further essays in this kind. He affirmed that 
it was to him like writing in a foreign tongue, — that 
Mr. Pope's versification was like the regular ticking 
of one of Willard's clocks, in which one could 



30 INTRODUCTION. 

fancy, after long listening, a certain kind of rhythm 
or tune, but which yet was only a poverty-stricken 
tick, tick, after all, — and that he had never seen a 
sweet- water on a trellis growing so fairly, or in forms 
so pleasing to his eye, as a fox-grape over a scrub- 
oak in a swamp. He added I know not what, to 
the effect that the sweet-water would only be the 
more disfigured by having its leaves starched and 
ironed out, and that Pegasus (so he called him) 
hardly looked right with his mane and tail in curl- 
papers. These and other such opinions I did not 
long strive to eradicate, attributing them rather to a 
defective education and senses untuned by too. long 
familiarity with purely natural objects, than to a 
perverted moral sense. I was the more inclined to 
this leniency since sufficient evidence was not to 
seek, that his verses, as wanting as they certainly 
were in classic polish and point, had somehow taken 
hold of the public ear in a surprising manner. So, 
only setting him right as to the quantity of the 
proper name Pegasus, I left him to follow the bent 
of his natural genius. 

There are two things upon which it would seem 
fitting to dilate somewhat more largely in this place, 
— the Yankee character and the Yankee dialect. 
And, first, of the Yankee character, which has 
wanted neither open maligners, nor even more 
dangerous enemies in the persons of those un^ilful 



INTRODUCTION. 31 

painters who have given to it that hardness, angu- 
larity, and want of proper perspective, which, in 
truth, belonged, not to their subject, but to their 
own niggard and unskilful pencil. 

New England was not so much the colony of a 
mother country, as a Hagar driv^en forth into the 
wilderness. The little self-exiled band which came 
hither in 1620 came, not to seek gold, but to found 
a democracy. They came that they might have 
the privilege to work and pray, to sit upon hard 
benches and listen to painful preachers as long as 
they would, yea, even unto thirty-seventhly, if the 
spirit so willed it. And surely, if the Greek might 
boast his Thermopylae, where three hundred men 
fell in resisting the Persian, we may well be proud 
of our Plymouth Rock, where a handful of men, 
women, and children not merely faced, but van- 
quished, winter, famine, the wilderness, and the yet 
more invincible storge that drew them back to the 
green island far away. These found no lotus grow- 
ing upon the surly shore, the taste of which could 
make them forget their httle native Ithaca ; nor 
were they so wanting to themselves in faith as to 
burn their ship, but could see the fair west wind 
belly the homeward sail, and then turn unrepining to 
grapple with the terrible Unknown. 

As Want was the prime foe these hardy exodists 
had to fortress themselves against, so it is little 



32 INTRODUCTION. 

wonder if that traditional feud is long in wearing 
out of the stock. The wounds of the old warfare 
were long ahealing, and an east wind of hard times 
puts a new ache in every one of them. Thrift was 
the first lesson in their horn-book, pointed out, letter 
after letter, by the lean finger of the hard school- 
master, Necessity. Neither were those plump, 
rosy-gilled Englishmen that came hither, but a 
hard-faced, atrabilious, earnest-eyed race, stiff from 
long wrestling with the Lord in prayer, and who 
had taught Satan to dread the new Puritan hug. 
Add two hundred years' influence of soil, climate, 
and exposure, with its necessary result of idiosyn- 
crasies, and we have the present Yankee, full of ex- 
pedients, half-master of all trades, inventive in all 
but the beautiful, full of shifts, not yet capable of 
comfort, armed at all points against the old enemy 
Hunger, longanimous, good at patching, not so 
careful for what is best as for what will do, with a 
clasp to his purse and a button to his pocket, not 
skilled to build against Time, as in old countries, 
but against sore-pressing Need, accustomed to move 
the world with no ttoD aro> but his own two feet, and 
no lever but his own long forecast. A strange 
hybrid, indeed, did circumstances beget, here in the 
New World, upon the old Puritan stock, and the 
earth never before saw such mystic-practicalism, 
such niggard-geniality, such calculating-fanatacism, 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

such cast-iron-enthusiasm, such unwilling-humor, 
such close-fisted- generosity. This new Grceculus 
esiiriens will make a living out of any thing. He 
will invent new trades as well as tools. His brain 
is his capital, and he will get education at all risks. 
Put him on Juan Fernandez, and he would make a 
spelling-book first, and a salt-pan afterward. lit 
cceluin jusseris^ ibity — or the other way either, — it is 
all one, so any thing is to be got by it. Yet, after 
all, thin, speculative Jonathan is more hke the 
Englishman of two centuries ago than John Bull 
himself is. He has lost somewhat in solidity, has 
become fluent and adaptable, but more of the origi- 
nal groundwork of character remains. He feels 
more at home with Fulke Greville, Herbert of Cher- 
bury, Quarles, George Herbert, and Browne, than 
with his modern English cousins. He is nearer 
than John, by at least a hundred years, to Naseby,. 
Marston Moor, Worcester, and the time when, if 
ever, there were true Englishmen. John Bull has 
suffered the idea of the Invisible to be very much 
fattened out of him. Jonathan is conscious still 
that he lives in the world of the Unseen as well as 
of the Seen. To move John, you must make your 
fulcrum of solid beef and pudding ; an abstract idea 
1 will do for Jonathan. 



S4 INTRODUCTION. 

\* TO THE INDULGENT READER. 

My friend, the Reverend Mr. Wilbur, having been seized 
with a dangerous fit of illness, before this Introduction had 
passed through the press, and being incapacitated for all 
literary exertion, sent to me his notes, memoranda, &c., and 
requested me to fashion them into some shape more fitting 
for the general eye. This, owing to the fragmentary and 
disjointed state of his manuscripts, I have felt wholly unable 
to do ; yet, being unwilling that the reader should be de- 
prived of such parts of his lucubrations as seemed more 
finished, and not well discerning how to segregate these 
from the rest, I have concluded to send them all to the press 
precisely as they are. 

Columbus Nye, Pastor of a Church in Bungtown Corner. 

It remains to speak of the Yankee dialect. And, first, it 
may be premised, in a general way, that any one much read 
in the writings of the early colonists need not be told that 
the far greater share of the words and phrases now esteemed 
peculiar to New England, and local there, were brought 
from the mother country. A person familiar with the 
dialect of certain portions of Massachusetts will not fail to 
recognize, in ordinary discourse, many words now noted in 
English vocabularies as archaic, the greater part of which 
were in common use about the time of the King James 
translation of the Bible. Shakspeare stands less in need of 
a glossary to most New Englanders than to many a native 
of the Old Country. The peculiarities of our speech, how- 
ever, are rapidly wearing out. As there is no country 
where reading is so universal and newspapers are so multi- 
tudinous, so no phrase remains long local, but is trans- 
planted in the mail bags to every remotest corner of the 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

land. Consequently our dialect approaches nearer to uni- 
formity than that of any other nation. 

The English have complained of us for coining new words. 
Many of those so stigmatized were old ones by them for- 
gotten, and all make now an unquestioned part of the cur- 
rency, wherever English is spoken. Undoubtedly, we have 
a right to make new words, as they are needed by the fresh 
aspects under which life presents itself here in the New 
World ; and, indeed, wherever a language is ahve, it 
grows. It might be questioned whether we could not es- 
tablish a stronger title to the ownership of the English 
tongue than the mother-islanders themselves. Here, past 
all question, is to be its great home and centre. And not 
only is it already spoken here by greater numbers, bv^ with 
a far higher popular average of correctness, than in Britain. 
The great writers of it, too, we might claim as ou s, were 
ownership to be settled by the number of readers and lovers. 

As regards the provincialisms to be met wit i in this vol- 
ume, I may say that the reader will not fine one which is 
not (as I believe) either native or imported mih the early 
settlers, nor one which I have not, with my own ears, heard 
in familiar use. In the metrical portion of the book, I have 
endeavored to adapt the spelling as nearly as possible to the 
ordinary mode of pronunciation. Let e reader who deems 
me over-particular remember this cauti jn of Martial : — 

" Quern reciias, meus est, O Fidentine, Itbeiius ; 
Sed male cum reciias, incipit esse tuus. ' * 

A few further explanatory remarks will not be impertinent. 
I shall barely lay down a few general rules for the reader's 
guidance. 

I. The genuine Yankee never gives the rough sound to 



36 INTRODUCTION. 

the r when he can help it, and often displays considerable 
ingenuity in avoiding it even before a vowel. 

2. He seldom sounds the final g, a piece of self-denial, if 
we consider his partiality for nasals. The same of the final 
d, as han and stan for hand 2Lndi stand. 

3. The h in such words as while, when, where, he omits 
altogether. 

4. In regard to a, he shows some inconsistency, some- 
times giving a close and obscure sound, as hev for have, 
hendy for handy, ez for as, thet for that, and again giving it 
the broad sound it has va father, as hdnsome for handsome. 

5. To the sound ou he prefixes an e (hard to exemplify 
otherwise than orally). 

The following passage in Shakspeare he would recite 
thus : — 

" Neow is the winta uv eour discontent 
Med glorious summa by this sun o' Yock, 
An' all the cleouds thet leowered upun eour hecuse 
In the deep buzzum o* the oshin buried ; 
Neow air eour breows beound 'ith victorious wreaths ; 
Eour breused arms hung up fer monimunce ; 
Eour starn alarums changed to merry meetins, 
Eour dreffle marches to delightful measures. 
Grim-visaged war heth smeuthed his wrinkled front, 
An' neow, instid o' mountin' barebid steeds 
To fright the souls o' ferfle edverseries, 
He capers nimly in a lady's chamber, 
To the lascivious pleasin' uv a loot." 

6. Au, in such words as daughter and slaughter, he pro- 
nounces ah. 

7. To the dish thus seasoned add a drawl ad libitum. 

[Mr. Wilbur's notes here become entirely fragmentary. — C. N.] 



INTRODUCTION. 37 

a. Unable to procure a likeness of Mr. Biglow, I thought 
the curious reader might be gratified with a sight of the 
editorial effigies. And here a choice between two was 
offered,— the one a profile (entirely black) cut by Doyle, 
the other a portrait-painted by a native artist of much 
promise. The first of these seemed wanting in expression, 
and in the second a slight obliquity of the visual organs has 
been heightened (perhaps from an over-desire of force on 
the part of the artist) into too close an approach to actual 
strabismus. This slight divergence in my optical apparatus 
from the ordinary model — however I may have been taught 
to regard it in the light of a mercy rather than a cross, since 
it enabled me to give as much of directness and personal 
application to my discourses as met the wants of my congre- 
gation, without risk of offending any by being supposed to 
have him or her in my eye (as the saying is) — seemed yet 
to Mrs. Wilbur a sufficient objection to the engraving of the 
aforesaid painting. We read of many who either absolutely 
refused to allow the copying of their features, as especially 
did Plotinus and Agesilaus among the ancients, not to men- 
tion the more modern instances of Scioppius Pal^eottus, 
Pinellus, Velserus, Gataker, and others, or were indifferent 
thereto, as Cromwell. 

/5. Yet was Caesar desirous of concealing his baldness. 
Per contra, my Lord Protector's carefulness in the matter of 
his wart might be cited. Men generally more desirous of 
being improved in their portraits than characters. Shall 
probably find very unflattered likenesses of ourselves in 
Recording Angel's gallery. 

y. Whether any of our national peculiarities may be traced 
to our use of stoves, as a certain closeness of the lips in pro- 
nunciation, and a smothered smoulderingness of disposition. 



88 INTRODUCTION. 

seldom roused to open flame ? An unrestrained intercourse 
with fire probably conducive to generosity and hospitality 
of soul. Ancient Mexicans used stoves, as the friar Augus- 
tin Ruiz reports, Hakluyt, III., 468, — but Popish priests not 
always reliable authority. 

To-day picked my Isabella grapes. Crop injured by at- 
tacks of rose-bug in the spring. Whether Noah was justi- 
fiable in preserving this class of insects ? 



3. Concerning Mr. Biglow's pedigree. Tolerably certain 
that there was never a poet among his ancestors. An 
ordination hymn attributed to a maternal uncle, but per- 
haps a sort of production not demanding the creative ' 
faculty. 

His grandfather a painter of the grandiose or Michael 
Angelo school. Seldom painted objects smaller than houses 
or barns, and these with uncommon expression. 



e. Of the Wilburs no complete pedigree. The crest said 
to be a wt7d boar, whence, perhaps, the name. (?) A con- 
nection with the Earls of Wilbraham [quasi wild boar ham) 
might be made out. This suggestion worth following up. 

In 1677, John W. m. Expect , had issue, i. John, 2. 

Haggai, 3. Expect, 4. Ruhamah, 5. Desire. 

" Hear lyes ye bodye of Mrs. Expect Wilber, 
Ye crewell salvages they kil'd her ! 

Together wth other Christian soles eleaven, 
October ye ix daye, 1707. 
Ye stream of Jordan sh' as crost ore 
And now expeacts me on ye other shore ; 
I live in hope her soon to join ; 
Her earthlye yeeres were forty and nine." 

From Gravestone in Pekussett, North Parish, 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

This is unquestionably the same John who afterward 
(171 1 ) married Tabitha Hagg or Ragg. 

But if this were the case, she seems to have died early ; 
for only three years after, namely, 17 14, we have evidence- 
that he married Winifred, daughter of Lieutenant Tipping„- 

He seems to have been a man of substance, for we findl 
him in 1696 conveying " one undivided eightieth part of a*. 
salt-meadow" in Yabbok, and he commanded a sloop in t 
1702. 

Those who doubt the importance of genealogical studies . 
fuste poiius quam argianento erudiendi. 

I trace him as far as 1723, and there lose him. In that 
year he was chosen selectman. 

No gravestone. Perhaps overthrown when new hearse—- 
house was built, 1802. 

He was probably the son of John, who came from Bilham- 
Comit. Salop, circa 1642. 

This first John was a man of considerable importance, 
being twice mentioned with the honorable prefix of Mr. in 
the town records. Name spelt with two /-s. 

" Hear lyeth ye bod \stone unhappily broken.'\ 
Mr. Ihon Willber [Esq.] \^I inclose this in brackets as 
dotibtftil. To me it seevis clear. "[ 

Oh\ 6.\e [illegible ; looks like xviii.'] iii [prob. l693.][ 

paynt 
. deseased seinte : 
A friend and [fathjer untoe all ye opreast, 
Hee gave ye wicked familists noe reast, 
When Sat [an bljewe his Antinomian blaste, 
"Wee clong to [Willber as a steadfjast maste. 
[A]gaynst ye horrid Qua[kers] 

It is greatly to be lamented that this curious epitaph is 



40 INTRODUCTION. 

mutilated. It is said that the sacrilegious British soldiers 
made a target of this stone during the war of Independence. 
How odious an animosity which pauses not at the grave ! 
How brutal that which spares not the monuments of authen- 
tic history ! This is not improbably from the pen of Rev. 
Moody Pyram, who is mentioned by Hubbard as having 
been noted for a silver vein of poetry. If his papers be still 
extant, a copy might possibly be recovered. 



CONTENTS. 

Page. 
No. I. — A Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow of Jaalam to the 
Hon. Joseph T. Buckingham, Editor of the Boston 
Courier, inclosing a Poem of his Son, Mr. Hosea Biglow, 43 

No. II. — A Letter from Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Hon. J. T. 
Buckingham, Editor of the Boston Courier, covering a 
Letter from Mr. B. Sawin, Private in the Massachusetts 
Regiment, » . . . . 53 

No. III. — What Mr. Robinson thinks, 69 

No. IV. — Remarks of Increase D. O'Phace, Esquire, at an 
Extrumpery Caucus in State Street, reported by Mr. H. 
Biglow 82 

No. V. — The Debate in the Sennit. Sot to a Nusry Rhyme, 98 

No. VI.— The Pious Editor's Creed, , . 108 

No. VII. — A Letter from a Candidate for the Presidency 
in Answer to suttin Questions proposed by Mr. Hosea 
Biglow, inclosed in a Note from Mr. Biglow to S. H. 
Gay, Esq., Editor of the National Anti-slavery Stand- 
ard, 118 

No. VIII. — A Second Letter from B. Sawin, Esq., .... 130 

No. IX A Third Letter from B. Sawin, Esq 151 

Glossary 171 

Index, 177 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



No. I. 
A LETTER 

FROM MR. EZEKIEL BIGLOW OF JAALAM TO THE HON. 
JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM, EDITOR OF THE BOSTON I 
COURIER, INCLOSING A POEM OF HIS SON, MR. HOSEA 
BIGLOW. 

Jaylem, June 1846. 

Mister Eddyter : — Our Hosea wuz down to Boston 

last week, and he see a cruetin Sarjunt a struttin round 

as popler as a hen with i chicking, with 2 fellers a drum- 

min and fifin arter him like all nater. the sarjunt he 

thout Hosea hedn't gut his i teeth cut cos he looked a 

kindo's though he'd jest com down, so he cal'lated to 

hook him in, but Hosy woodn't take none o' his sarse 

for all he hed much as 20 Rooster's tales stuck onto his 

hat and eenamost enuf brass a bobbin up and down on 

his shoulders and figureed onto his coat and trousis, let 

alone wut nater hed sot in his featers, to make a 6 

pounder out on. 

(43) 



44 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

wal, Hosea he com home considerabal riled, aad 
arter I* d gone to bed I heern Him a thrash in round like 
a short-tailed Bull in fli-time. Tlie old Woman ses she 
to me ses she, Zekle, ses she, our Hosee's gut the 
choUery or suthin anuther ses she, don't you Bee 
skeered, ses I, he's oney amakin pottery* ses i, he's 
oilers on hand at that ere busynes like Da & martin, and 
shure enuf, cum mornin, Hosy he cum down stares full 
chizzle, hare on eend and cote tales flyin, and sot rite 
of to go reed his varses to Parson Wilbur bein he haint 
aney grate shows o' book larnin himself, bimeby he cum 
back and sed the parson wuz dreffle tickled with 'em as 
i hoop you will Be, and said they wuz True grit. 

Hosea ses taint hardly fair to call 'em hisn now, cos 
the parson kind o' slicked off sum o' the last varses, but 
he told Hosee he didn't want to put his ore in to tetch 
to the Rest on 'em, bein they wuz verry well As thay 
wuz, and then Hosy ses he sed suthin a nuther about 
Simplex Mundishes or sum sech feller, but I guess Hosea 
kind o' didn't hear him, for I never hearn o' nobody o' 
that name in this villadge, and I've lived here man and 
boy 76 year cum next tater diggin, and thair aint no 
wheres a kitting spryer 'n I be. 

If you print *em I wish you'd jest let folks know who 

* Aut insanity aut versos facit. — H.W. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 45 

hosy's father is, cos my ant Keziah used to say it's nater 

to be curus ses she, she aint livin though and he's a 

likely kind o' lad. 

EZEKIEL BIGLOW. 



Thrash away, you '11 hev to rattle 

On them kittle drums o' yourn, — 
*Taint a knowin' kind o' cattle 

Thet is ketched with mouldy corn ; 
Put in stiff, you fifer feller, . 

Let folks see how spry you be, — 
Guess you '11 toot till you are yeller 

'Fore you git ahold o' me ! 

Thet air flag 's a lettle rotten, 

Hope it aint your Sunday's best;— 
Fact ! it takes a sight o' cotton 

To stuff out a soger's chest : 
Sence we farmers hev to pay fer 't, 

Ef you must wear humps like these, ,. 

Sposin' you should try salt hay fer 't, i 

It would du ez slick ez grease. 

'T would n't suit them Southern fellers, 

They 're a dreffle graspin' set, 
We must oilers blow the bellers 

Wen they want their irons het; 



46 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

May be it 's all right ez preachin', 
But my narves it kind o* grates, 

Wen I see the overreachin' 
O' them nigger-drivin' States. 

Them thet rule us, them slave-traders, 

Haint they cut a thunderin' swarth, 
(Helped by Yankee renegaders,) 

Thru the vartu o' the North ! 
We begin to think it 's nater 

To take sarse an' not be riled ;— 
Who 'd expect to see a tater 

All on eend at bein' biled ? 

Ez fer war, I call it murder, — 

There you hev it plain an' flat ; 
I don't want to go no furder 

Than my Testyment fer that ; 
God hez sed so plump an' fairly, 

It 's ez long ez it is broad, 
An* you 've gut to git up airly 

Ef you want to take in God. 

'Taint your eppyletts an' feathers 
Make the thing a grain more right ; 

'Taint afoUerin' your bell-wethers 
Will excuse ye in His sight : 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 47 

Ef you take a sword an' dror it, 

An' go stick a feller thru, 
Guv'ment aint to answer for it, 

God '11 send the bill to you. 

Wut 's the use o' meeting-goin* 

Every Sabbath, wet or dry, 
Ef it 's right to go amowin' 

Feller-men like oats an' rye ? 
I dunno but wut it 's pooty 

Training round in bobtail coats,— 
But it 's curus Christian dooty 

This ere cuttin' folks's throats. 

They may talk o' Freedom's airy 

Tell they 're pupple in the face,— 
It 's a grand gret cemetary 

Fer the barthrights of our race ; 
They jest want this Californy 

So 's to lug new slave-states in 
To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye, 

An' to plunder ye like sin. 

Aint it cute to see a Yankee 

Take sech everlastin' pains. 
All to git the Devil's thankee, 

Helpin' on 'em weld their chains? 



48 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

Wy, it *s jest ez clear ez figgers, 
Clear ez one an' one make two, 

Chaps thet make black slaves o* niggers 
Want to make wite slaves o' you. 

Tell ye jest the eend I 've come to 

Arter cipherin' plaguy smart, 
An' it makes a handy sum, tu, 
4 Any gump could larn by heart ; 

Laborin' man an* laborin' woman 
i Hev one glory an* one shame, 

; Ev'y thin' thet 's done inhuman 

Injers all on *em the same. 

'Taint by turnin' out to hack folks 
I You 're agoin' to git your right. 

Nor by lookin* down on black folks 

Coz you *re put upon by wite ; 
Slavery aint o* nary color, 

*Taint the hide thet makes it wus, 
All it keers fer in a feller 

'S jest to make him fill its pus. 

Want to tackle mg in, du ye ? 

I expect you *11 hev to wait ; 
Wen cold lead puts daylight thru ye 

You '11 begin to kal'late ; 



THE BIGLOAV PAPERS. 49 

*Spose the crows wun't fall to pickin' 

All the carkiss from your bones, 
Coz you helped to give a lickin' 

To them poor half-Spanish drones? 

Jest go home an' ask our Nancy 

Wether I 'd be sech a goose 
Ez to jine ye, — guess you 'd fancy 

The etarnal bung wuz loose ! 
She wants me fer home consumption. 

Let alone the hay 's to mow, — 
Ef you 're arter folks o' gumption, 

You 've a darned long row to hoe. 

Take them editors thet 's crowin' 

Like a cockerel three months old, — 
Don't ketch any on 'em goin'. 

Though they be so blasted bold \ 
Aint they a prime set o' fellers ? 

'Fore they think on 't they will sprout, 
(Like a peach thet's got the yellers,) 

With the meanness bustin' out. 

Wal, go 'long to help 'em stealin* 
Bigger pens to cram with slaves, 

Help the men thet 's oilers dealin' 
Insults on your fathers' graves ; 
4 



60 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

Help the strong to grind the feeble, 
Help the many agin the few, 

Help the men thet call your people 
Witewashed slaves an' peddlin' crew ! 

Massachusetts, God forgive her, 

She 's akneelin' with the rest, 
She, thet ough' to ha' clung fer ever 

In her grand old eagle-nest ; 
She thet ough' to stand so fearless 

Wile the wracks are round her hurled, 
Holdin' up a beacon peerless 

To the oppressed of all the world ! 

Haint they sold your colored seamen ? 

Haint they made your env'ys wiz ? 
PVuf '11 make ye act like freemen ? 

IVii^ '11 git your dander riz ? 
Come, I '11 tell ye wut I 'm thinkin* 

Is our dooty in this fix, 
. They 'd ha' done *t ez quick ez winkin* 

In the days o' seventy-six. 

Clang the bells in every steeple. 
Call all true men to disown 

The tradoocers of our people. 
The enslavers o' their own ; 



^1 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 51 

Let our dear old Bay State proudly 

Put the trumpet to her mouth, 
Let her ring this messidge loudly 

In the ears of all the South : — 

*' I '11 return ye good fer evil 

Much ez we frail mortils can, 
But I wun't go help the Devil 
, Makin' man the cus o' man ; 

I Call me coward, call me traiter. 

Jest ez suits your mean idees, — 
Here I stand a tyrant-hater, 

An' the friend o' God an' Peace ! '* 

Ef I 'd tny way I hed ruther 

We should go to work an' part, — 

They take one way, we take t'other, — 
Guess it would n't break my heart; 

Man hed ough* to put asunder 
I Them thet God has noways jined ; 

An' I should n't gretly wonder 
Ef there 's thousands o' my mind. 

[The first recruiting sergeant on record I conceive to have 
been that individual who is mentioned in the Book of Job as 
going to and fro in the earth, and walking tip and down in 
U. Bishop Latimer will have him to have been a bishop, 
but to me that other calling would appear more congenial. 



52 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

The sect of Cainites is not yet extinct, who esteemed the 
firstborn of Adam to be the most worthy, not only because 
of that privilege of primogeniture, but inasmuch as he was 
able to overcome and slay his younger brother. That was 
a wise saying of the famous Marquis Pescara to the Papal 
Legate, that it was impossible for men to seri'e Mars and 
Christ at the same time. Yet in time past the profession of 
arms was judged to be ko.t k^oxhv that of a gentleman, nor 
does this opinion want for strenuous upholders even in our 
day. Must we suppose, then, that the profession of Chris- 
tianity was only intended for losels, or, at best, to afford an 
opening for plebeian ambition ? Or shall we hold with that 
nicely metaphysical Pomeranian, Captain Vratz, who was 
Count Konigsmark's chief instrument in the murder of Mr. 
Thynne, that the Scheme of Salvation has been arranged 
with an especial eye to the necessities of the upper classes, 
and that "God would consider « ^^«//.?W(^« and deal with 
him suitably to the condition and profession he had placed 
him in " ? It may be said of us all, Exe^nplo plus quam 
ratione vivimus. — H. W.] 



No. II. 

A LETTER 

FROM MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE HON. J. T. BUCKINGHAM, 
EDITOR OF THE BOSTON COURIER, COVERING A LETTER 
FROM MR. B. SAWIN, PRIVATE IN THE MASSACHUSETTS 
REGIMENT. 

[This letter of Mr. Sawin's was not originally written in 
verse. Mr. Biglow, thinking it peculiarly susceptible of 
metrical adornment, translated it, so to speak, into his own 
vernacular tongue. This is not the time to consider the 
question, whether rhyme be a mode of expression natural to 
the human race. If leisure from other and more important 
avocations be granted, I will handle the matter more at 
large in an appendix to the present volume. In this place 
I will barely remark, that I have sometimes noticed in the 
unlanguaged prattlings of infants a fondness for alliteration, 
assonance, and even rhyme, in which natural predisposition 
we may trace the three degrees through which our Anglo- 
Saxon verse rose to its culmination in the poetry of Pope. I 
would not be understood as questioning in these remarks 
that pious theory which supposes that children, if left entirely 
to themselves, would naturally discourse in Hebrew. For 
this the authority of one experiment is claimed, and I could, 
with Sir Thomas Browne, desire its establishment, inasmuch 
as the acquirement of that sacred tongue would thereby be 
facilitated. I am aware that Herodotus states the conclu- 
sion of Psammeticus to have been in favor of a dialect of the 
Phrygian. But, beside the chance that a trial of this im* 

(63) 



54 THE BTGLOW PAPERS. 

portance would hardly be blessed to a Pagan monarch 
whose only motive was curiosity, we have on the Hebrew 
side the comparatively recent investigation of James the 
Fourth of Scotland. I will add to this prefatory remark, 
that Mr. Sawin, though a native of Jaalam, has never been 
a stated attendant on the religious exercises of my congrega- 
tion. I consider my humble efforts prospered in that not 
one of my sheep hath ever indued the wolf's clothing of 
war, save for the comparatively innocent diversion of a 
militia training. Not that my flock are backward to undergo 
the hardship of defensive warfare. They serve cheerfully in 
the great army which fights even unto death /r<? aris etfocis, 
accoutred with the spade, the axe, the plane, the sledge, 
the spelling-book, and other such effectual weapons against 
want and ignorance and unthrift. I have taught them 
(under God) to esteem our human institutions as but tents of 
a night, to be stricken whenever Truth puts the bugle to her 
lips and sounds a march to the heights of wider-viewed in- 
telligence and more perfect organization.— H. W.] 

Mister Buckinum, the foUerin Billet was writ hum 
by a Yung feller of our town that wuz cussed fool 
enuff to goe atrottin inter Miss Chiff arter a Drum and 
fife, it ain't Nater for a feller to let on that he's sick 
o' any bizness that He went intu off his own free will 
and a Cord, but I rather cal'late he's middlin tired o' 
voluntearin By this Time. I bleeve u may put de- 
pendunts on his statemence. For I never heered nothin 
bad on him let Alone his bavin what Parson Wilbur 
cals a pongshong for cocktales, and he ses it wuz a 

i 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 55 

soshiashun of idees sot him agoin arter the Crootin 
Sargient cos he wore a cocktale onto his hat. 

his Folks gin the letter to me and i shew it to parson 
Wilbur and he ses it oughter Bee printed, send It to 
mister Buckinum, ses he, i don't oilers agree with him, 
ses he, but by Time,* ses he, I du like a feller that ain't 
a Feared. 

I have intusspussed a Few refleckshuns hear and 
thair. We're kind o' prest with Hayin. 

Ewers respecfly 

HOSEA BIGLOW. 

This kind o' sogerin* aint a mite like our October 

trainin', 
A chap could clear right out from there ef 't only 

looked like rainin'. 
An' th' Cunnles, tu, could kiver up their shappoes 

with bandanners. 
An' send the insines skootin* to the barroom with their 

banners, 

* In relation to this expression, I cannot but think that Mr. 
Biglow has been too hasty in attributing it to me. Though Time 
be a comparatively innocent personage to swear by, and though 
Longinus in his discourse nept'Y^ov? has commended timely 
oaths as not only a useful but sublime figure of speech, yet I have 
always kept my lips free from that abomination. Odi profanum 
vulguSy I hate your swearing and hectoring fellows. — H. W. 



66 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

(Fear o* gittin' on 'em spotted,) an' a feller could cry 

quarter 
Ef he fired away his ramrod arter tu much rum an* 

water. 
Recollect wut fun we hed, you 'n 1 an Ezry Hollis, 
Up there to Waltham plain last fall, ahavin' the Corn- 

wallis ? * 
This sort o' thing aint jest like thet, — I wish thet I was 

furder, — f 
Nimepunce a day fer killin' folks comes kind o' low fer 

murder, 
(Wy I 've worked out to slarterin' some fer Deacon Ce- 
phas Billins, 
An* in the hardest times there wuz I oilers tetched ten 

shillins,) 
There 's sutthin* gits into my throat thet makes it hard 

to swaller, 
It comes so nateral to think about a hempen collar ; 
It 's glory, — but, in spite o' all my tryin' to git callous, 
I feel a kind o' in a cart, aridin' to the gallus. 
But wen it comes to beitC killed, — I tell ye I felt streaked 
The fust time ever I found out wy baggonets wuz 

peaked ; 

* i halt the Site of a feller with a muskit as I du pizn But their 
is fun to a cornwallis I aint agoin' to deny it. — H. B. 
\ he means Not quite so fur i guess. — H. B. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 57 

Here 's how it wuz : I started out to go to a fandango, 
The sentinul he ups an' sez, ** Thet 's lurder 'an you can 

go." 
**None o' your sarse," sez I; sez he, **Stan' back ! " 

'* Aint you a buster? " 
Sez I, "I'm up to all thet air, I guess I 've ben to 

muster ; 
J I know wy sentinuls air sot ; you aint agoin' to eat us ; 
Caleb haint no monopoly to court the seenoreetas ; 
My folks to hum air full ez good ez hisn be, by golly ! " 
An' so ez I wuz goin' by, not thinkin wut would folly, 
The everlastin' cus he stuck his one-pronged pitchfork 

in me 
An' made a hole right thru my close ez ef I wuz an 

in'my. 
Wai, it beats all how big I felt hoorawin' in ole Funnel 
Wen Mister Bolles he gin the sword to our Leftenant 

Cunnle, 
(It 's Mister Secondary Bolles,* thet writ the prize peace 

essay ; 
Thet 's why he did n't list himself along o* us, I dessay,) 
An' Rantoul, tu, talked pooty loud, but don't put his 

foot in it, 

* the ignerant creeter means Sekketary ; but he oilers stuck to 
his books like cobbler's wax to an ile-stone. — H. B. 



58 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

Coz human life 's so sacred thet he 's principled agin* 

it,— 
Though I myself can 't rightly see it's any wus achokin' 

on 'em 
Than puttin' bullets thru their lights, or with a bagnet 

pokin' on *em ; 
How dreffle slick he reeled it off, (like Blitz at our 

lyceum 
Ahaulin' ribbins from his chops so quick you skeercely 

see 'em,) 
About the Anglo-Saxon race (an* saxons would be handy 
To du the buryin' down here upon the Rio Grandy), 
About our patriotic pas an' our star-spangled banner, 
Our country*s bird alookin' on an* singin' out hosanner. 
An' how he (Mister B. himself) wuz happy fer Amer- 

iky,— 
I felt, ez sister Patience sez, a leetle mite histericky. 
I felt, I swon, ez though it wuz a dreffle kind o' privi- 
lege 
Atrampin' round thru Boston streets among the gutter's 

drivelage ; 
I act'lly thought it wuz a treat to hear a little drummin', 
An' it did bonyfidy seem millanyum wuz acomin' 
Wen all on us got suits (darned like them wore in the 

state prison) 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 59 

An' every feller felt ez though all Mexico wuz hisn.* 

This 'ere 's about the meanest place a skunk could wal 

diskiver 
(Saltillo 's Mexican, I b'lieve, fer wut we call Saltriver). 
The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat doos beat all nater, 
I'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one good bluenose 

tater ; 
The country here thet Mister Bolles declared to be so 

charmin 
Throughout is swarmin* with the most alarmin' kind o* 

varmin*. 
He talked about delishis froots, but then it wuz a wopper 

all, 
The holl on't 's mud an' prickly pears, with here an* 

there a chapparal ; 
You see a feller peekin' out, an', fust you know, a lariat 
Is round your throat an' you a copse, 'fore you can say, 

*'Wut air ye at?"t 

*it must be aloud that thare 's a streak o' nater in lovin' sho, 
but it sartinly is I of the curusest things in nater to see a rispeck- 
table dri goods dealer (deekon off a chutch mayby) a riggin' him- 
self out in the Weigh they du and struttin' round in the Reign 
aspilin' his trowsis and makin' wet goods of himself. Ef any thin 
's foolisher and moor dicklus than militerry gloary it is milishy 
gloary. — H. B. 

f these fellers are verry proppilly called Rank Heroes, and the 
more tha kill the ranker and more Herowick tha bekum. — H. B. 



€0 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

You never see sech darned gret bugs (it may not be irrel- 
evant 

To say I 've seen a scarabczus pilularius * big ez a year 
old elephant,) 

The rigiment come up one day in time to stop a red bug 

From runnin' off with Cunnle Wright, — *t wuz jest a 
common cimex lecttilarius. 

One night I started up on eend an' thought I wuz to hum 

agin, 
I heern a horn, thinks I it 's Sol the fisherman hez come 

agin. 
His bellowses is sound enough, — ez I 'm alivin' creeter, 
I felt a thing go thru my leg, — 't wuz nothin' more 'n a 

skeeter ! 
Then there 's the yaller fever, tu, they call it here el 

vomito, — 
(Come, thet wun't du, you landcrab there, I tell ye to 

le' go my toe ! 
My gracious ! it 's a scorpion thet 's took a sl.ine to play 

with 't, 
I dars n't skeer the tarnal thing fer fear he 'd run away 

with 't.) 

* it wuz " tumblebug " as he Writ it, but the parson put the 
Latten instid. i sed tother maid better meeter, but he said tha was 
cddykated peepl to Boston and tha would n't stan' it no how. 
idnow as tha wood and idnow as tha wood. — H. B. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 61 

Afore I come away from hum I hed a strong persuasion 
Thet Mexicans worn't human beans,* — an ourang outang 

nation, 
A sort o' folks a chap could kill an' never dream on 't 

' arter, 
No more 'n a feller 'd dream o' pigs thet he hed hed to 

slarter ; 
I 'd an idee thet they were built arter the darkie fashion 

all. 
An' kickin' colored folks about, you know, 's a kind o' 

national ; 
But wen I jined I worn't so wise ez thet air queen o* 

Sheby, 
Fer, come to look at 'em, they aint much diff'rent from 

wut we be, 
An' here we air ascrougin' 'em out o' thir own do- 
minions, 
Ashelterin' 'em, ez Caleb sez, under our eagle's pinions, 
Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o' 's 

trowsis 
An' walk him Spanish clean right out o' all his homes 

an' houses; 

* he means human beins, that 's wut he means, i spose he 
kinder thought tha wuz human beans ware the Xisle Poles comes 
from.— H. B. 



62 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

Wal, it doos seem a cuius way, but then hooraw fer 

Jackson i 
It must be right, fer Caleb sez it 's reg'lar Anglo-saxon. 
The Mex'cans don't fight fair, they say, they piz'n all 

the water, 
An' du amazin' lots o' things thet is n't wut they ough' to; 
Bein' they haint no lead, they make their bullets out o' 

copper 
An' shoot the darned things at us, tu, wich Caleb sez 

aint proper ; 
He sez they 'd ough' to stan' right up an' let us pop *em 

fairly, 
(Guess wen he ketches 'em at thet he '11 hev to git up 

airly,) 
Thet our nation 's bigger 'n theirn an' so its rights air 

bigger. 
An* thet it's all to make *em free thet we air pullin' trig. 

ger, 
Thet Anglo Saxondom's idee 's abreakin' 'em to pieces. 
An' thet idee 's thet every man doos jest wut he damn 

pleases ; 
Ef I don't make his meanin' clear, perhaps in some re- 

spex I can, 
I know thet "every man" don't mean a nigger or a 

Mexican ; 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 63 

An* there 's another thing I know, an' thet is, ef these 

creeturs, 
Thet stick an Anglosaxon mask onto State-prison feeturs. 
Should come to Jaalam Centre fer to argify an' spout 

on 't. 
The gals 'ould count the silver spoons the minnit they 

cleared out on 't. 

This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable fee- 

tur, 
An' if it worn't fer wakin' snakes, I'd home agin short 

meter ; 
O, would n't I be off, quick time, ef *t worn't thet I wuz 

sartin 
They 'd let the daylight into me to pay me fer desartin ! 
I don't approve o' tellin' tales, but jest to you I may 

state 
Our ossifers aint wut they wuz afore they left the Bay- 
' state ; 

Then it wuz ** Mister Sawin, sir, you 're middlin' well 

now, be ye ? 
Step up an' take a nipper, sir j I 'm dreffle glad to see 

ye"; 
But now it 's ** Ware 's my eppylet? here, Sawin, step 

an' fetch it ! 



64 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

An' mind your eye, be thund'rin' spry, or, damn ye, 
you shall ketch it ! " 

Wal, ez the Doctor sez, some pork will bile so, but by 
mighty, 

Ef I hed some on 'em to hum, I 'd give 'em linkum 
vity, 

I 'd play the rogue's march on their hides an' other mu- 
sic follerin' 

But I must close my letter here, for one on 'em 's ahol- 
lerin', | 

These Anglosaxon ossifers, — wal, taint no use ajawin*, 

I 'm safe enlisted fer the war, 
Yourn, 

BIRDOFREDOM SAWIN. 



[Those have not been wanting (as, indeed, when hath Sa- 
tan been to seek for attorneys ?) who have maintained that 
our late inroad upon Mexico was undertaken, not so much for 
the avenging of any national quarrel, as for the spreading 
of free institutions and of Protestantism. Capita vix duabus 
Anticyris medenda ! Verily I admire that no pious sergeant * 
among these new Crusaders beheld Martin Luther riding at 
the front of the host upon a tamed pontifical bull, as, in 
that former invasion of Mexico, the zealous Diaz (spawn 
though he were of the Scarlet Woman) was favored with a 
vision of St. James of Compostella, skewering the infidels 
upon his apostolical lance. We read, also, that Richard of 
the lion heart, having gone to Palestine on a similar errand 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 65 

of mercy, was divinely encouraged to cut the throats of such 
Paynims as refused to swallow the bread of life (doubtless 
that they might be thereafter incapacitated for swallowing the 
filthy gobbets of Mahound) by angels of heaven, who cried 
to the king and his knights, — Seigneurs,, ttiez ! tuez ! provi- 
dentially using the French tongue, as being the only one 
understood by their auditors. This would argue for the- 
pantoglottism of these celestial intelligences, while, on the 
other hand, the Devil, teste Cotton Mather, is unversed im 
certain of the Indian dialects. Yet must he be a semeiolo- 
gist the most expert, making himself intelligible to every 
people and kindred by signs ; no other discourse, indeed^ 
being needful, than such as the mackerel-fisher holds with, 
his finned quarry, who, if other bait be wanting, can by a^ 
bare bit of white rag at the end of a string captivate those- 
foolish fishes. Such piscatorial oratory is Satan cunning in. 
Before one he trails a hat and feather, or a bare feather 
without a hat ; before another, a Presidential chair, or a* 
tidewaiter's stool, or a pulpit in the city, no matter what.. 
To us, danglmg there over our heads, they seem junkets- 
dropped out of the seventh heaven, sops dipped in nectar, 
but, once in our mouths, they are all one, bits of fuzzy cot- 
ton. 

This, however, by the way. It is time now revocare- 
gradum. While so many miracles of this sort, vouched by- 
eyewitnesses, have encouraged the arms of Papists, not to 
speak of those Dioscuri (whom we must conclude imps of 
the pit) who sundry times captained the pagan Roman so\- 
diery, it is strange that our first American crusade was not 
in some such wise also signalized. Yet it is said that the 
Lord hath manifestly prospered our armies. This opens 
the question, whether, when our hands are strengthened to 
make great slaughter of our enemies, it be absolutely and 
5 



66 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

demonstratively certain that this might is added to us from 
above, or whether some Potentate from an opposite quarter 
may not have a finger in it, as there are few pies into which 
his meddUng digits are not thrust. Would the Sanctifier and 
Setter-apart of the seventh day have assisted in a victory 
gained on the Sabbath, as was one in the late war ? Or has 
that day become less an object of his especial care since 
the year 1697, when so manifest a providence occurred to 
Mr. William Trowbridge, in answer to whose prayers, when 
he and all on shipboard with him were starving, a dolphin 
was sent daily, •' which was enough to serve 'em ; only on 
Saturdays they still catched a couple, and on the Lo?'if s 
Days they could catch none at all" .'' Haply they might 
ihave been permitted, by way of mordfication, to take some 
few sculpins (those banes of the salt-water angler), which 
onseemly fish would, moreover, have conveyed to them a 
symbolical reproof for their breach of the day, being known 
in the rude dialect of our mariners as Ca^e Cod Clergymen. 
It has been a refreshment to many nice consciences to 
know that our Chief Magistrate would not regard with eyes 
of approval the (by many esteemed) smful pastime of danc- 
ing, and I own myself to be so far of that mind, that I 
could not but set my face against this Mexican Polka, 
though danced to the Presidential piping with a Guberna- 
torial second. If ever the country should be seized with 
another such mania de propaganda fide, I think it would be 
wise to fill our bombshells with alternate copies of the 
Cambridge Platform and the Thirty-nine Articles, which 
■would produce a mixture of the highest explosive power, 
and to wrap every one of our cannon-balls in a leaf of the 
New Testament, the reading of which is denied to those 
wild sit in the darkness of Popery. Those iron evangelists 
vvou'.J thus be able to disseminate vital religion and Gospel 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 67 

truth in quarters inaccessible to the ordinary missionary. I 
have seen lads, unimpregnate with the more sublimated 
punctiliousness of Walton, secure pickerel, taking their un- 
wary siesta beneath the hly-pads too nigh the surface, with 
a gun and small shot. Why not, then, since gunpowder 
was unknown to the Apostles (not to enter here upon the 
question whether it were discovered before that period by the 
Chinese), suit our metaphor to the age in which we live and 
say shoote7S as well 2lS fishers of men ? 

I do much fear that we shall be seized now and then with 
a Protestant fervor, as long as we have neighbor Naboths 
whose wallowings in Papistical mire excite our horror in exact 
proportion to the size and desirableness of their vineyards. 
Yet I rejoice that some earnest Protestants have been made 
by this war, — I mean those who protested against it. Fewer 
tliey were than I could wish, for one might imagine America 
to have been colonized by a tribe of those nondescript Afri- 
can animals the Aye-Ayes, so difficult a word is No to us 
all. There is some malformation or defect of the vocal 
organs, which either prevents our uttering it at all, or gives 
it so thick a pronunciation as to be unintelligible. A mouth 
filled with the national pudding, or watering in expectation 
thereof, is wholly incompetent to this refractory monosyl- 
lable. An abject and herpetic Public Opinion is the Pope, 
the Anti-Christ, for us to protest against e corde cordiian. 
And by what College of Cardinals is this our God's-vicar, 
our binder and looser, elected? Very like, by the sacred 
conclave of Tag, Rag, and Bobtail, in the gracious atmos- 
phere of the grog-shop. Yet it is of this that we must all 
be puppets. This thumps the pulpit-cushion, this guides 
the editor's pen, this wags the senator's tongue. This de- 
cides what Scriptures are canonical, and shuffles Christ 
away into the Apocrypha. According to that sentence 



68 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

fathered upon Solon, Outw Sr}n6(Ti,ov KaKOP epxerat olKaS" eKa<TTto. 

This unclean spirit is skilful to assume various shapes. I 
have known it to enter my own study and nudge my elbow 
of a Saturday, under the semblance of a wealthy member 
of my congregation. It were a great blessing, if every 
particular of what in the sum we call popular sentiment 
could carry about the name of its manufacturer stamped 
legibly upon it. I gave a stab under the fifth rib to that 
pestilent fallacy,—" Our country, right or wrong,"— by 
tracing its original to a speech of Ensign Cilley at a dinner 
of the Bungtown Fencibles. — H. W.J 



No. III. 
WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS. 

[A FEW remarks on the following verses will not be out 
of place. The satire in them was not meant to have any 
personal, but only a general, application. Of the gentleman 
upon whose letter they were intended as a commentary Mr. 
Biglow had never heard, till he saw the letter itself. The 
position of the satirist is oftentimes one which he would not 
have chosen, had the election been left to himself. In at- 
tacking bad principles, he is obliged to select some individ- 
ual who has made himself their exponent, and in whom 
they are impersonate, to the end that what he says may not, 
through ambiguity, be dissipated tenues in auras. For what 
says Seneca ? Longum iter per prcEcepta, breve et efficace per 
exetnpia. A bad principle is comparatively harmless while 
it continues to be an abstraction, nor can the general mind 
comprehend it fully till it is printed in that large type which 
all men can read at sight, namely, the life and character, 
the sayings and doings, of particular persons. It is one of 
the cunningest fetches of Satan, that he never exposes him- 
self directly to our arrows, but, still dodging behind this 
neighbor or that acquaintance, compels us to \vound him 
through them, if at all. He holds our affections as host- 
ages, the while he patches up a truce with our conscience. 

Meanwhile, let us not forget that the aim of the true satir- 
ist is not to be severe upon persons, but only upon false- 
hood, and, as Truth and Falsehood start from the same 
point, and sometimes even go along together for a little 

(69) 



70 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

way, his business is to follow the path of the latter after it 
diverges, and to show her floundering in the bog at the end 
of it. Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There is 
so brave a simplicity in hei, that she can no more be made 
ridiculous than an oak or pine. The danger of the satirist 
is, that continual use may deaden his sensibility to the force 
of language. He becomes more and more liable to strike 
harder than he knows or intends. He may be careful to 
put on his boxing-gloves, and yet forget, that, the older 
they grow, the more plainly may the knuckles inside be felt. 
Moreover, in the heat of contest, the eye is insensibly drawn 
to the crown of victory, whose tawdry tinsel glitters through 
that dust of the ring which obscures Truth's wreath of' 
simple leaves. I have sometimes thought that my young 
friend, Mr. Biglow, needed a monitory hand laid on his 
arm, — aliquid sufflami?iandus erat. I have never thought it 
good husbandry to water the tender plants of reform with 
aqua fortis , yet, where so much is to do in the beds, he were 
a sorry gardener who should wage a whole day's war with 
an iron scuffle on those ill weeds that make the garden-walks 
of life unsightly, when a sprinkle of Attic salt will wither 
them up. Est ars etiam maledicendi, says Scaliger, and 
truly it is a hard thing to say where the graceful gentleness 
of the lamb merges in downright sheepishness. We may 
conclude with worthy and wise Dr. Fuller, that " one may 
be a lamb in private wrongs, but in hearing general affronts 
to goodness they are asses which are not lions." — H. W.] 

GuvENER B. is a sensible man ; 

He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks; 
He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, 

An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes ; — 



1 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. *IX 

But John P. ' 

Robinson he 
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. 

My ! aint it terrible ? Wut shall we du ? 

We can't never choose him, o' course, — thet 's flat;-. 
Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you?) 
An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that ; 
Fer John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. 

Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man : 

He 's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; 
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan, — 

He 's ben true to one party, — an' thet is himself; — 
So John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 

Gineral C. he goes in fer the war ; 

He don't vally principle more 'n an old cud ; 
Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer. 
But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood? 
So John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 



*I2 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

We were gittin* on nicely up here to our village, 

With good old idees o' wut 's right an' wut aint, 
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage, 
An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez this kind o* thing 's an exploded idee. 

The side of our country must oilers be took, 

An' Presidunt Polk, you know, he is our country ; 

An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book 
Puts the debit to him, an' to us the per contry ; 

\ An' John P. 

; Robinson he 

Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T. 

Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies ; 

Sez they 're nothin' on airth but ]Q's>\. fee , faw , fum ; 
An' thet all this big talk of our destinies 
Is half on it ignorance, an't'other half rum; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez it aint no sech thing ; an', of course, so must we. 

Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life 

Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 78 

An* marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, 
To git some on 'em office, an' some on *em votes;. 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez they did n't know everythin' down in Judee. 

Wal, it 's a marcy we 've gut folks to tell us 

The rights an' the wrongs o* these matters, I vow, — 
God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers. 
To drive the world's team wen it gits in a slough ; 
Fer John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez the world '11 go right, ef he hollers out Gee ! 

[The attentive reader will doubtless have perceived in the 
foregoing poem an allusion to that pernicious sentiment, — 
" Our country, right or wrong." It is an abuse of language 
to call a certain portion of land, much more, certain person- 
ages elevated for the time being to high station, our country. 
I would not sever nor loosen a single one of those ties by 
which we are united to the spot of our birth, nor minish by 
a tittle the respect due to the Magistrate. I love our own 
Bay State too well to do the one, and as for the other, I 
have myself for nigh forty years exercised, however un- 
worthily, the function of Justice of the Peace, having been 
called thereto by the unsolicited kindness of that most ex- 
cellent man and upright patriot, Caleb Strong. Patriae 
fumus igne alieno liiculentior is best qualified with this, — Ubi 



74 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

Hbertas, ibi patria. We are inhabitants of two worlds, and 
owe a double, but not a divided, allegiance. In virtue of 
our clay, this little ball of earth exacts a certain loyalty of 
us, while, in our capacity as spirits, we are admitted citizens 
of an invisible and holier fatherland. There is a patriotism 
of the soul whose claim absolves us from our other and 
terrene fealty. Our true country is that ideal realm which 
we represent to ourselves under the names of religion, duty, 
and the like. Our terrestrial organizations are but far-off 
approaches to so fair a model, and they all are verily traitors 
who resist not any attempt to divert them from this their 
original intendment. When, therefore, one would have us 
to fling up our caps and siiout with the multitude, — " Our 
country, however bounded f " he demands of us that we 
sacrifice the larger to the less, the higher to the lower, and 
that we yield to the imaginary claims of a few acres of soil 
our duty and privilege as liegemen of Truth. Our true 
country is bounded on the north and the south, on the east 
and the west, by Justice, and when she oversteps that in- 
visible boundary-line by so much as a hair's breadth, she 
ceases to be our mother, and chooses rather to be looked 
upon quasi noverca. That is a hard choice, when our earthly 
love of country calls upon us to tread one path and our duty 
points us to another. We must make as noble and becom- 
ing an election as did Penelope between Icarius and Ulysses. 
Veiling our faces, we must take silently the hand of Duty to 
follow her. 

Shortly after the publication of the foregoing poem, there 
appeared some comments upon it in one of the public prints 
which seemed to call for some animadversion. I accord- 
ingly addressed to Mr. Buckingham, of the Boston Courier, 
the following letter. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 75- 

" Jaalam, November 4, 1847. 
•• To the Editor of the Courier: 

"Respected Sir,— Calling at the post office this morn- 
ing, our worthy and efficient postmaster offered for my 
perusal a paragraph in the Boston Morning Post of the 3d in- 
stant, wherein certain effusions of the pastoral muse are at- 
tributed to the pen of Mr. James Russell Lowell. For aught 
I know or can affirm to the contrary, this Mr. Lowell may 
be a very deserving person and a youth of parts (though I 
have seen verses of his which I could never rightly under- 
stand) ; and if he be such, he, I am certain, as well as I, 
would be free from any proclivity to appropriate to himself 
whatever of credit (or discredit) may honestly belong to an- v 
other. I am confident, that, in penning these few lines, I 
am only forestalling a disclaimer from that young gentle- 
man, whose silence hitherto, when rumor pointed to him- 
ward, has excited in my bosom mingled emotions of sorrow 
and surprise. Well may my young parishioner, Mr. Biglow» 
exclaim with the poet. 

' Sic vos non vobis ' &c. ; 

though, in saying this, I would not convey the impression; 
that he is a proficient in the Latin tongue, — the tongue, I 
might add, of a Horace and a Tully. j 

" Mr. B. does not employ his pen, I can safely say, for '■ 
any lucre of worldly gain, or to be exalted by the carnal 
plaudits of men, digito monsirari, &c. He does not wait 
upon Providence for mercies, and in his heart mean merces. 
But I should esteem myself as verily deficient in my duty 
(who am his friend and in some unworthy sort his spiritual 
Jidus Achates, &:c.), if I did not step forward to claim for 
him whatever measure of applause might be assigned to him 
by the judicious. 



76 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

" If this were a fitting occasion, I might venture here a 
fbrief dissertation touching the manner and kind of my young 
friend's poetry. But I dubitate whether this abstruser sort of 
speculation (though enhvened by some apposite instances from 
Aristophanes) would sufficiently interest your oppidan read- 
•ers. As regards their satirical tone, and their plainness of 
speech, I will only say, that, in my pastoral experience, I 
have found that the Arch-Enemy loves nothing better than 
to be treated as a religious, moral, and intellectual being, 
and that there is no apage Sathatias ! so potent as ridicule. 
But it is a kind of weapon that must have a button of good- 
nature on the point of it. 

" The productions of Mr. B. have been stigmatized in 
•.some quarters as unpatriotic ; but I can vouch that he loves 
his native soil with that hearty, though discriminating, at- 
tachment which springs from an intimate social intercourse 
•of many years* standing. In the ploughing season, no one 
has a deeper share in the well-being of the country than he. 
If Dean Swift were right in saying that he who makes two 
blades of grass grow where one grew before confers a 
■greater benefit on the state than he who taketh a city, Mr. 
B. might exhibit a fairer claim to the Presidency tlian Gen- 
•eral Scott himself. I think that some of those ciibinterested 
lovers of the hard-handed democracy, whose fingers have 
never touched anything rougher than the dollars of our com- 
mon country, would hesitate to compare palms with him. It 
would do your heart good, respected Sir, to see that young 
man mow. He cuts a cleaner and wider swarth tlian any 
in this town. 

" But it is time for me to be at my Post. It is very clear 
that my young friend's shot has struck the lintel, for the 
Post is shaken (Amos ix. i). The editor of that paper is a 
strenuous advocate of the Mexican war, and a colonel, as I 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. TT 

am given to understand. I presume, that, being necessarily- 
absent in Mexico, he has left his journal in some less ju- 
dicious hands. At any rate, the Post has been too swift on 
this occasion. It could hardly have cited a more incontro- 
vertible line from any poem than that which it has selected 
for animadversion, namely, — 

* We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.' 

"If the Post maintains the converse of this proposition, it 
can hardly be considered as a safe guidepost for the moral 
and religious portions of its party, however many other ex- 
cellent qualities of a post it may be blessed with. There is 
a sign in London on which is painted, — ' The Green Man.' 
It would do very well as a portrait of any individual who 
would support so unscriptural a thesis. As regards the 
language of the line in question, I am bold to say that He 
who readeth the hearts of men will not account any dialect 
unseemly which conveys a sound and pious sentiment. I 
could wish that such sentiments were more common, how- 
ever uncouthly expressed. Saint Ambrose affirms, that 
Veritas a quocunque (why not, then, quomodocunque ?) dicatur^ 
a spiritu sancto est. Digest also this of Baxter : — ' The 
plainest words are the most profitable oratory in the 
weightiest matters.' 

" When the paragraph in question was shown to Mr. Big- 
low, the only part of it which seemed to give him any dis- 
satisfaction was that which classed him with the Whig party. 
He says, that, if resolutions are a nourishing kind of diet» 
that party must be in a very hearty and flourishing condi- 
tion ; for that they have quietly eaten more good ones of 
their own baking than he could have conceived to be pos- 
sible without repletion. He has been for some years past 
(I regret to say) an ardent opponent of those sound doc- 



78 I'HiS BIGLOW TAPERS. 

trines of protective policy which form so prominent a por- 
tion of the creed of that party. I confess, that, in some 
discussions which I have had with him on this point in 
my study, he has displayed a vein of obstinacy which I 
had not hitherto detected in his composition. He is also 
{horresco referens) infected in no small measure with the pe- 
culiar notions of a print called the Liberator, whose here- 
sies I take every proper opportunity of combating, and of 
which, I thank God, I have never read a single line. 

•• I did not see Mr. B.'s verses until they appeared in 
print, and there is certainly one thing in them which I con- 
sider highly improper. I allude to the personal references 
to myself by name. To confer notoriety on an humble in- 
dividual who is laboring quietly in his vocation, and who 
keeps his cloth as free as he can from the dust of the po- 
litical arena (though vce uiihi si noii evangelizavero), is no 
doubt an indecorum. The sentiments which he attributes 
to me I will not deny to be mine. They were embodied, 
though in a different form, in a discourse preached upon the 
last day of public fasting, and were acceptable to my en- 
tire people (of whatever political views), except the post- 
master, who dissented ex officio. I observe that you some- 
times devote a portion of your paper to a religious sum- 
mary. I should be well pleased to furnish a copy of my 
discourse for insertion in this department of your instructive 
journal. By omitting the advertisements, it might easily be 
got within the limits of a single number, and 1 venture to 
insure you the sale of some scores of copies in this town. I 
will cheerfully render myself responsible for ten. It might 
possibly be advantageous to issue it as an exiya. But per- 
haps you will not esteem it an object, and I will not press 
it. My offer does not spring from any weak desire of see- 
ing my name in print ; for I can enjoy this satisfaction at 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. *J 

any time by turning to the Triennial Catalogue of the 
University, where it also possesses that added emphasis of 
Italics with which those of my calling are distinguished. 

"I would simply add, that I continue to fit ingenuous 
youth for college, and that I have two spacious and airy 
sleeping apartments at this moment unoccupied. Ingenuas 
didicisse, ik.c. Terms, which vary according to the circum- 
stances of the parents, may be known on application to me 
by letter, post paid. In all cases the lad will be expected to 
fetch his own towels. This rule, Mrs. \V. desires me to add, 
has no exceptions. 

" Respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" HOMER WILBUR, A. M." 

"P. S. Perhaps the last paragraph may look like an at- 
tempt to obtain the insertion of my circular gratuitously. 
If it should appear to you in that light, I desire that you 
would erase it, or charge for it at the usual rates, and deduct 
the amount from the proceeds in your hands from the sale 
of my discourse, when it shall be printed. My circular is 
much longer and more explicit, and will be forwarded with- 
out charge to any who may desire it. It has been very 
neatly executed on a letter sheet, by a very deserving 
printer, who attends upon my ministry, and is a creditable 
specimen of the typographic art. I have one hung over 
my mantelpiece in a neat frame, where it makes a beautiful 
and appropriate ornament, and balances the profile of Mrs. 
W., cut with her toes by the young lady born without arms. 

" H. W." 

I have in the foregoing letter mentioned General Scott 
in connection with the Presidency, because I have been 
given to understand that he has blown to pieces and other- 



80 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

wise caused to be destroyed more Mexicans than any other 
commander. His claim would therefore be deservedly con- 
sidered the strongest. Until accurate returns of the Mexi- 
can killed, wounded, and maimed be obtained, it will be 
difficult to settle these nice points of precedence. Should 
it prove that any other officer has been more meritorious 
and destructive than General S., and has thereby rendered 
himself more worthy of the confidence and support of the 
conservative portion of our community, I shall cheerfully 
insert his name, instead of that of General S., in a future 
edition. It may be thought, likewise, that General S. has 
invalidated his claims by too much attention to the de- 
cencies of apparel, and the habits belonging to a gentle- 
man. These abstruser points of statesmanship are beyond 
my scope. I wonder not that successful military achieve- 
ment should attract the admiration of the multitude. 
Rather do I rejoice with wonder to behold how rapidly 
this sentiment is losing its hold upon the popular mind. It 
is related of Thomas Warton, the second of that honored 
name who held the office of Poetry Professor at Oxford, 
that, when one wished to find him, being absconded, as 
was his wont, in some obscure alehouse, he was counselled 
to traverse the city with a drum and fife, the sound of which 
inspiring music would be sure to draw the Doctor from his 
retirement into the street. We are all more or less bitten 

vi'iih this martial insanity, Nescio qua dulcedine 

cunctos ducit. I confess to some infection of that itch my- 
self. When I see a Brigadier-General maintaining his inse- 
cure elevation in the saddle under the severe fire of the 
training-field, and when I remember that some military en- 
thusiasts, through haste, inexperience, or an over-desire to 
lend reality to those fictitious combats, will sometimes dis- 
charge their ramrods, I cannot but admire, while I deplore. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 81 

the mistaken devotion of those heroic officers. Seme! in* 
sanivtmus omnes. I was myself, during the late war with 
Great Britain, chaplain of a regiment, which was fortunately 
never called to active military duty. 1 mention this cir- 
cumstance with regret rather than pride. Had I been sum- 
moned to actual warfare, I trust that I might have been 
strengthened to bear myself after the manner of that rev- 
erend father in our New England Israel, Dr. Benjamin 
Colman, who, as we are told in Turell's life of him, when 
the vessel in which he had taken passage for England 
was attacked by a French privateer, " fought like a philos- 
opher and a Christian and prayed all the while 

he charged and fired." As this note is already long, I 
shall not here enter upon a discussion of the question, 
whether Christians may lawfully be soldiers. I think it suf- 
ficiently evident, that, during the first two centuries of the 
Christian era, at least, the two professions were esteemed 
incompatible. Consult Jortin on this head. — H. W.] 

6 



No. IV. 

REMARKS OF INCREASE D. o' PHAGE, ESQUIRE, AT AN EX- 
TRUMPERY CAUCUS IN STATE STREET, REPORTED BY MR. 
H. BIGLOW. 

[The ingenious reader will at once understand that no 
such speech as the following was ever iotidevi verbis pro- 
nounced. But there are simpler and less guarded wits, for 
the satisfying of which such an explanation may be need- 
ful. For there are certain invisible lines, which as Truth 
successively overpasses, she becomes Untruth to one and 
another of us, as a large river, flowing from one kingdom into 
another, sometimes takes a new name, albeit the waters un- 
dergo no change, how small soever. There is, moreover, a 
truth of fiction more veracious than the truth of fact, as 
that of the Poet, which represents to us things and events as 
they ought to be, rather than servilely copies them as they 
are imperfectly imaged in the crooked and smoky glass of 
our mundane affairs. It is this which makes the speech of 
Antonius, though originally spoken in no widera foi um ih;>.n 
the brain of Shakspeare, more historically valuable than 
• that other which Appian has reported, by as much as t' e 
understanding of the Englishman was more comprehenbi\ -- 
than that of the Alexandrian. Mr. Biglow, in the presci.t 
instance, has only made use of a license assumed by all the 
historians of antiquity, who put into the mouths of various 
characters such words as seem to them most fitting to the 
occasion and to the speaker. If it be objected that no such 
(82) 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 83 

oration could ever have been delivered, I answer, that there 
are few assemblages for speech-making which do not better 
deserve the title of Parliamentum hidoctorum than did the 
sixth Parliament of Henry the Fourth, and that men still 
continue to have as much faith in the Oracle of Fools as 
ever Pantagruel had. Howell, in his letters, recounts a 
merry tale of a certain ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, who, 
having written two letters, one to her Majesty and the other 
to his wife, directed them at cross-purposes, so that the 
Queen was beducked and bedeared and requested to send a 
change of hose, and the wife was beprincessed and other- 
wise unwontedly besuperlatived, till the one feared for the 
wits of her ambassador, the other for those of her husband. 
In like manner it may be presumed that our speaker has 
misdirected some of his thoughts, and given to the whole 
theatre what he would have wished to confide only to a 
select auditory at the back of the curtain. For it is seldom 
that we can get any frank utterance from men, who address, 
for the most part, a Buncombe either in this world or the 
next. As for their audiences, it may be truly said of our 
people, that they enjoy one political institution in common 
with the ancient Athenians : I mean a certain profitless 
kind q{ ostracism, wherewith, nevertheless, they seem hith- 
erto well enough content. For in Presidential elections, and 
other affairs of the sort, whereas I observe that the oysters 
fall to the lot of comparatively few, the shells (such as the 
privileges of voting as they are told to do by the ostrivori 
aforesaid, and of huzzaing at public meetings) are very 
liberally distributed among the people, as being their pre- 
scriptive and quite sufficient portion. 

The occasion of the speech is supposed to be Mr. Pal- 
frey's refusal to vote for the Whig candidate for the Speak- 
ership.— H. W.] 



84 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

No ? Hez he ? He haint, though ? Wut ? Voted agin 

him? 
Ef the bird of our country could ketch him, she 'd skin 

him ; 
I seem 's though I see her, with wrath in each quill, 
Lake a chancery lawyer, afilin' her bill, 
An* grindin' her talents ez sharp ez all nater. 
To pounce like a writ on the back o' the trailer. 
Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to be het. 
But a crisis like this must with vigor be met ; 
Wen an Arnold the star-spangled banner bestains, 
HoU Fourth o* Julys seem to bile in my veins. 

Who ever 'd ha' thought sech a pisonous rig 
Would be run by a chap thet wuz chose fer a Wig ? 
**We knowed wut his principles wuz 'fore we sent 

him"? 
Wut wuz ther in them from this vote to pervent him ? 
A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler 
O' purpose thet we might our principles swaller; 
It can hold any quantity on 'em, the belly can, 
An' bring 'em up ready fer use like the pelican. 
Or more like the kangaroo, who (wich is stranger) 
Puts her family into her pouch wen there 's danger. 
Aint principle precious? then, who 's goin' to use it 
Wen there 's resk o' some chap's gittin' up to abuse it ? 



i 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 85 

1 can't tell the wy on 't, but nothin' is so sure 

Ez thet principle kind o' gits spiled by exposure ; * 

A man thet lets all sorts o' folks git •^ sight on 't 

Ough' to hev it all took right away, every mite on 't; 

Ef he can't keep it to himself wen it 's wise to, 
He aint one it 's fit to trust nothin' so nice to. 

Besides, ther 's a wonderful power in latitude 

To shift a man's morril relations an' attitude; 

Some flossifers think thet a fakkilty 's granted 

The minnit it 's proved to be thoroughly wanted, 

Thet a change o' demand makes a change o' condition, 

An' thet everythin' 's nothin' except by position ; 

Ez, fer instance, thet rubber-trees fust begun bearin' 

Wen p'litickle conshunces come into wearin', — 

Thet the fears of a monkey, whose holt chanced to fail, 

Drawed the vertibry out to a prehensile tail ; 

* The speaker is of a different mind from Tully, who, in his re- 
cently discovered tractate De Rupublica^ tells us, — Nee vera 
habere vietutem satis est, quasi artem aliqam, nisi utare, and 
from our Milton, who says,^ — " I cannot praise a fugitive and clois. 
tered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out 
and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that im- 
mortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.^* — 
Areop. He had taken the words out of the Roman's mouth, with- 
out knowing it, and might well exclaim with Austin (if a saint's 
name may stand sponsor for a curse), Pereant qui ante nos nostra 
dixerint f—H. W. 



86 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

So, wen one 's chose to Congriss, ez soon ez he *s in it, 
A collar grows right round his neck in a minnit, 
An' sartin it is thet a man cannot be strict 
In bein' himself, wen he gits to the Deestrict, 
Fer a coat thet sets wal here in ole Massachusetts, 
Wen it gits onto Washinton, somehow askew sets. 

Resolves, do you say, o* the Springfield Convention ? 

Thet 's percisely the pint I was goin' to mention ; 

Resolves air a thing we most gen'ally keep ill, 

They 're a cheap kind o' dust fer the eyes o' the people; 

A parcel o' delligits jest git together 

An' chat fer a spell o' the crops an' the weather, 

Then, comin' to order, they squabble awile 

An' let off the speeches they 're ferful '11 spile ; 

Then — Resolve, — Thet we wunt hev an inch o' slave 

territory ; 
Thet President Polk's holl perceedins air very tory ; 
Thet the war 's a damned war, an' them thet enlist in it 
Should hev a cravat with a dreffle tight twist in it; 
Thet the war is a war fer the spreadin' o' slavery; 
Thet our army desarves our best thanks fer their bravery ; 
Thet we 're the original friends o' the nation, 
All the rest air a paltry an' base fabrication ; 
Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an' C, 
An' ez deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an' G. 



1 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 87 

In this way they go to the eend o' the chapter, 
An* then they bust out in a kind of a raptur 
About their own vartoo, an* folk's stone-blindness 
To the men thet 'ould actilly do 'em a kindness, — 
The American eagle, the Pilgrims thet landed, 
Till on ole Plymouth Rock they git finally stranded. 
Wal, the people they listen and say, " Thet *s the 

ticket ; 
Ez fer Mexico, 'taint no great glory to lick it, 
But 't would be a darned shame to go pullin' o' triggers 
To extend the aree of abusin* the niggers." 
So they march in percessions, an* git up hooraws. 
An* tramp thru the mud fer the good o' the cause, 
An' think they 're a kind o* fulfillin' the prophecies, 
Wen they *re on'y jest changin' the holders of offices • 
Ware A sot afore, B is comftably seated, 
One humbug 's victor'ous, an' t'other defeated. 
Each honnable doughface gits jest wut he axes, 
An' the people — their annooal soft sodder an' taxes. 

Now, to keep unimpaired all these glorious feeturs 
Thet characterize morril an* reasonin' creeturs, 
Thet give every paytriot all he can cram, 
Thet oust the untrustworthy Presidunt Flam, 
And stick honest Presidunt Sham in his place, 
To the manifest gain o* the hr 11 luiman race, 



S8 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

An' to some indervidgewals on 't in partickler, 

Who love Public Opinion an' know how to ti'-Ue 

her, — 
I say thet a party with great aims like these 
Must stick jest ez close ez a hive full o' bees. 

I 'm willin' a man should go tollable strong 

Agin wrong in the abstract, fer thet kind o' wrong 

Is oilers unpop'lar an* never gits pitied, 

Because it 's a crime no one never committed ; 

But he mus' n't be hard on partickler sins, 

Coz then he'll be kickin' the people's own shins ; 

On'y look at the Demmercrats, see wut they 've done 

Jest simply by stickin' together like fun ; 

They 've sucked us right into a mis' able war 

Thet no one on airth aint responsible for ; 

They 've run us a hunderd cool millions in debt, 

(An' fer Demmercrat Horners ther 's good plums left 

yet); 
They talk agin tayriffs, but act fer a high one. 
An* so coax all parties to build up their Zion ; 
To the people they 're oilers ez slick ez molasses, 
An* butter their bread on both sides with The Masses, 
Half o' whom they *ve persuaded, by way of a joke, 
Thet Washinton's mantelpiece fell upon Polk. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 89 

Now all o' these blessiiis the Wigs might enjoy, 

Ef they 'd gumption enough the right means to imploy;* 

Fer the silver spoon born in Dermocracy's mouth 

Is a kind of a scringe thet they hev to the South ; 

Their masters can cuss *em an* kick 'em an' wale 'em, 

An' they notice it less 'an the ass did to Balaam ; 

In this way they screw into second-rate offices 

Wich the slaveholder thinks 'ould substract too much 

off his ease ; 
The file-leaders, I mean, du, fer they, by their wiles, 
Unlike the old viper, grow fat on their files. 
Wal, the Wigs hev been try in' to grab all this prey 

frum 'em 
An' to hook this nice spoon o' good fortin' away 

frum 'em. 
An* they might ha' succeeded, ez likely ez not 
In lickin* the Demmercrats all round the lot, 
Ef it warn't thet, wile all faithful Wigs were their 

knees on. 
Some stuffy old codger would holler out, — " Treason ! 
You must keep a sharp eye on a dog thet hez bit you 

once, 

* That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits our politicians 
without a wrinkle, — Magister artis^ ingeniique largitor venter.—^ 
H. W. 



90 THE BTGLOW PAPERS. 

An' /aint agoin' to cheat my constitoounts," — 

Wen every fool knows thet a man represents 

Not the fellers thet sent him, but them on the fence,— 

Impartially ready to jump either side 

An' make the fust use of a turn o' the tide, — 

The waiters on Providunce here in the city, 

Who compose wut they call a State Centerl Committy. 

Constitoounts air hendy to help a man in, 

But arterwards don't weigh the heft of a pin. 

Wy, the people can't all live on Uncle Sam's pus, 

So they 've nothin' to du with 't fer better or wus ; 

It 's the folks thet air kind o' brought up to depend on *t 

Thet hev any consarn in 't, an* thet is tlie end on 't. 

Now here wuz New England ahevin' the honor 

Of a chance at the Speakership showered upon her; — 

Do you say, — "She don't want no more Speakers, but 

fewer ; 
She 's hed plenty o* them, wut she wants is a doer "/ 
Fer the matter o' thet, it 's notorous in town 
Thet her own representatives du her quite brown. 
But thet 's nothin' to du with it ; wut right hed Palfrey 
To mix himself up with fanatical small fry ? 
Warn't we gittin' on prime with our hot an' cold blowin', 
Acondemnin' the war wilst we kep' it agoin' ? 



THE BIGLOW TAPERS. 91 

We 'd assumed with gret skill a commandin' position, 
On this side or thet, no one could n't tell wich one, 
So, wutever side wipped, we 'd a chance at the plunder 
An' could sue fer infringin' our paytented thunder; 
We were ready to vote fer whoever wuz eligible, 
Ef on all pints at issoo he 'd stay unintelligible. 
Wal, sposin' we hed to gulp down our perfessions. 
We were ready to come out next mornin' with fresh 

ones ; 
Besides, ef we did, 't was our business alone, 
Fer could n't we du wut we would with our own ? 
An' ef a man can, wen pervisions hev riz so, 
Eat up his own words, it 's a marcy it is so. 

Wy, these chaps frum the North, with back-bones to 'em, 

darn 'em, 
'Ould be wuth more 'an Gennle Tom Thumb is to 

Barnum ; 
Ther 's enough thet to office on this very plan grow. 
By exhibitin' how very small a man can grow; 
But an M. C. frum here oilers hastens to state he 
Belongs to the order called invertebraty, 
Wence some gret filologists judge primy fashy 
Thet M. C. is M. T. by paronomashy ; 
An' these few exceptions air loosiis naytury 
Folks 'ould put down their quarters to stare at, like fury. 



•92 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

It 's no use to open the door o' success, 
£f a member can bolt so fer nothin' or less ; 
Wy, all o' them grand constitootional pillers 
Our four fathers fetched with 'em over the billers, 
Them pillers the people so soundly hev slept on, 
Wile to slav'ry, invasion, an' debt they were swept on, 
Wile our Destiny higher an' higher kep' mountin*, 
(Though I guess folks '11 stare wen she hends her ac- 
count in,) 
Ef members in this way go kickin' agin 'em, 
They wunt hev so much ez a feather left in 'em. 

An', ez fer this Palfrey,* we thought wen we 'd gut him 

in, 
He'd go kindly in wutever harness we put him in ; 
Supposin' we did know thet he wuz a peace man ? 
Doos he think he can be Uncle Samwell's policeman, 
An' wen Sam gits tipsy an' kicks up a riot, 
Lead him off to the lockup to snooze till he 's quiet? 
Wy, the war is a war thet true paytriots can bear, ef 
It leads to the fat promised land of a tayriff; 
We don't go an' fight it, nor aint to be driv on, 
Nor Demmercrats nuther, thet hev wut to live on ; 

■""There is truth yet in this of Juvenal, — 

" Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas." 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 93*. 

Ef it aint jest the thing thet 's well pleasin' to God, 
It makes us thought highly on elsewhere abroad ; 
The Rooshian black eagle looks blue in his eerie 
An' shakes both his heads wen he hears o' Monteery ; 
In the Tower Victory sets, all of a fluster, 
An' reads, with locked doors, how we won Cherry Buster;. 
An' old Philip Lewis — thet come an' kep* school here 
Fer the mere sake o' scorin' his ryalist ruler 
On the tenderest part of our kings infuttiro — 
Hides his crown underneath an old shut in his bureau, 
Breaks off in his brags to a suckle o' merry kings. 
How he often hed hided young native Amerrikins, 
An', turnin' quite faint in the midst of his fooleries, 
Sneaks down stairs to bolt the front door o' the Tool- 
eries.* 

* Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles besides those re- 
corded in Holy Writ, and why not of other prophecies? It is. 
granting too much to Satan to suppose him, as divers of the 
learned have done, the inspirer of the ancient oracles. Wiser, I 
esteem it, to give chance the credit of the successful ones. What 
is said here of Louis Philippe was verified in some of its minute 
particulars within a few months' time, Enougli to have made the 
fortune of Delphi or Hammon, and no thanks to Beelzebub 
neither ! That of Seneca in Medea will suit here : — 

" Rapida fortuna ac levis, 
Prsecepsque regno cripuit, exsilio dedit." 

Let us allow, even to richly deserved misfortune, our commis- 
eration, and be not over-hasty meanwhile in our censure of the- 
French people, left for the first time to govern themselves, re- 
membering that wise sentence of ^^schylus, — 



94 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

You say, — ''We' d ha* scared 'em by growin' in peace, 
A plaguy sight more then by bobberies like these" ? 
Who is it dares say thet '' our naytional eagle 
Wunt much longer be classed with the birds thet air regal, 
Coz theirn be hooked beaks, an' she, arter this slaughter, 
'11 bring back a bill ten times longer 'n she oug't to " ? 
Wut 's your name? Come, I see ye, you up-country 

feller, 
You 've put me out severil times with your beller , 
Out with it ! Wut ? Biglow ? I say nothin' furder, 
Thet feller would like nothin' better 'n a murder; 
He 's a traiter, blasphemer, an' wut ruther worse is, 
He puts all his ath'ism in dreffle bad verses; 
Socity aint safe till sech monsters air out on it, 
Refer to the Post, ef you hev the least doubt on it ; 
Wy, he goes agin war, agin indirect taxes, 
Agin sellin' wild lands 'cept to settlers with axes. 
Agin holdin' o' slaves, though he knows it 's the corner 
Our libbaty rests on, the mis' able scorner ! 
In short, he would wholly upset with his ravages 
All thet keeps us above the brute critters an' savages, 
An' pitch into all kinds o' briles an' confusions 
The holl of our civilized, free institutions : 
He writes fer thet rather unsafe print, the Courier, 
An' likely ez not hez a squintin' to Foorier ; 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 95 

I '11 be , thet is, I mean I '11 be blest, 

Ef I hark to a word frum so noted a pest ; 
I shan't talk with him, my religion 's too fervent. — 
Good mornin', my friends, I 'm your most humble 
servant. 

[Into the question, whether the ability to express ourselves 
in articulate language has been productive of more good or 
evil, I shall not here enter at large. The two faculties of 
speech and of speech-making are wholly diverse in their 
natures. By the first we make ourselves intelligible, by the 
last unintelligible, to our fellows. It has not seldom occurred 
to me (noting how in our national legislature every thing 
runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be unpro- 
pitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming hand- 
some heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the earliest 
mill erected for the manufacture of gabble. In these days, 
what with Town Meetings, School Committees, Boards (lum- 
ber) of one kind and another. Congresses, Parliaments, 
Diets, Indian Councils, Palavers, and the like, there is scarce 
a village which has not its factories of this description driven 
by (milk-and-) water power. I cannot conceive the con- 
fusion of tongues to have been the curse of Babel, since I 
esteem my ignorance of other languages as a kind of Mar- 
tello-tower, in which I am safe from the furious bombard- 
ments of foreign garrulity. For this reason I have ever 
preferred the study of the dead languages, those primitive 
formations being Ararats upon whose silent peaks I sit secure 
and watch this new deluge without fear, though it rain fig- 
ures [simulacra, semblances) of speech forty days and nights 
together, as it not uncommonly happens. Thus is my coat, 
as it were, without buttons by which any but a vernacular 



96 THE BTGLOW PAPERS. 

wild bore can seize me. Is it not possible that the Shakers 
may intend to convey a quiet reproof and hint, in fastening 
their outer garments with hooks and eyes ? 

This reflection concerning Babel, which I find in no Com- 
mentary, was first thrown upon my mind when an excellent 
deacon of my congregation (being infected with the Second 
Advent delusion) assured me that he had received a first 
instalment of the gift of tongues as a small earnest of larger 
possessions in the like kind to follow. For, of a truth, I 
could not reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine justice 
and mercy that the single wall which protected people of 
other languages from the incursions of this otherwise well- 
meaning propagandist should be broken down. ^ 

In reading Congressional debates, I have fancied, that, 
after the subsidence of those painful buzzings in the brain 
which result from such exercises, I detected a slender 
residuum of valuable information. I made the discovery 
that nothing takes longer in the saying than any thing else, 
for, as ex nihilo nihil fit, so from one polypus nothing 2ir\y 
number of similar ones may be produced. I would recom- 
mend to the attention of viva voce debaters and contro- 
versialists the admirable example of the monk Copres, who, 
in the fourth century, stood for half an hour in the midst of 
a great fire, and thereby silenced a Manichaean antagonist 
who had less of the salamander in him. As for those who 
quarrel in print, I have no concern with them here, since the • 
eyelids are a Divinely-granted shield against all such. 
Moreover, I have observed in many modern books that the 
printed portion is becoming gradually smaller, and the num- 
ber of blank or fly-leaves (as they are called) greater. 
Should this fortunate tendency of literature continue, books 
will grow more valuable from year to year, and the whole 
Serbonian bog yield to the advances of firm arable land. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 97 

I have wondered, in the Representatives* Chamber of our 
own Commonwealth, to mark how httle impression seemed 
to be produced by that emblematic fish suspended over the 
heads of the members. Our wiser ancestors, no doubt, hung 
it there as being the animal which the Pythagoreans rever- 
enced for its silence, and which certainly in that particular 
does not so well merit the epithet cold-blooded, by which 
naturalists distinguish it, as certain bipeds, afflicted with 
ditch-water on the brain, who take occasion to tap them- 
selves in Fanueil Halls, meeting-houses, and other places 
of public resort. — H. W.J 



No. V. 

THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT. 

SOT TO A NUSRY RHYME. 

[The incident which gave rise to the debate satirized in 
^the following verses was the unsuccessful attempt of Dray- 
ton and Sayres to give freedom to seventy men and women, 
t'ellow-beings and fellow-Christians. Had Tripoli, instead 
of Washington, been the scene of this undertaking, the un- 
happy leaders in it would have been as secure of the theo- 
retic as they now are of the practical part of martyrdom. I 
question whether the Dey of Tripoli is blessed with a Dis- 
trict Attorney so benighted as ours at the seat of govern- 
ment. Very fitly is he named Key, who would allow him- 
self to be made the instrument of locking the door of hope 
against sufferers in such a cause. Not all the waters of the 
ocean can cleanse the vile smutch of the jailer's fingers 
from off that little Key. Ahenea clavis, a brazen Key in- 
deed ! 

Mr. Calhoun, who is made the chief speaker in this bur- 
lesque, seems to think that the light of the nineteenth cen- 
tury is to be put out as soon as he tinkles his little cow-bell 
curfew. Whenever slavery is touched, he sets up his scare- 
crow of dissolving the Union. This may do for the North, 
but I should conjecture that something more than a pump- 
kin-lantern is required to scare manifest and irretrievable 
Destiny out of her path. Mr. Calhoun cannot let go the 
apron-string of the Past. The Past is a good nurse, but we 
(98) 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 99 

must be weaned from her sooner or later, even though, like 
Plotinus, we should run home from school to ask the breast, 
after we are tolerably well-grown youths. It will not do for 
us to hide our faces in her lap, whenever the strange Future 
holds out her arms and asks us to come to her. 

But we are all alike. We have all heard it said, often 
enough, that little boys must not play with fire ; and yet, if 
the matches be taken away from us and put out of reach 
upon the shelf, we must needs get into our little corner, and 
scowl and stamp and threaten the dire revenge of going to 
bed without our supper. The world shall stop till we get 
our dangerous plaything again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, 
who has more than enough household matters to mind, goes 
busthng hither and thither as a hiss or a sputter tells her 
that this or that kettle of hers is boiling over, and before 
bedtime we are glad to eat our porridge cold, and gulp down 
our dignity along with it. 

Mr. Calhoun has somehow acquired the name of a great 
statesman, and, if it be great statemanship to put lance in 
rest and run a tilt at the Spirit of the Age with the certainty 
of being next moment hurled neck and heels into the dust 
amid universal laughter, he deserves the title. He is the 
Sir Kay of our modern chivalry. He should remember the 
old Scandinavian mythus. Thor was the strongest of gods, 
but he could not wrestle with Time, nor so much as lift up 
a fold of the great snake which knit the universe together ; 
and when he smote the Earth, though with his terrible mal- 
let, it was but as if a leaf had fallen. Yet all the while it 
seemed to Thor that he had only been wrestling with an old 
woman, striving to lift a cat, and striking a stupid giant on 
the head. 

And in old times, doubtless, the giants were stupid, and 
there was no better sport for the Sir Launcelots and Sir 



100 THE BIG LOW PAPERS. 

Gawains than to go about cutting off their great blundering 
heads with enchanted swords. But things have wonderfully 
changed. It is the giants, nowadays, that have the science 
and the intelligence, while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of 
Conservatism still cumber themselves with the clumsy 
armor of a bygone age. On whirls the restless globe 
through unsounded time, with its cities and its silences, its 
births and funerals, half light, half shade, but never wholly 
dark, and sure to swing round into the happy morning at 
last. With an involuntary smile, one sees Mr. Calhoun let- 
ting slip his pack-thread cable with a crooked pin at the end 
of it to anchor South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of 
the Past.— H. W.j ' 

TO MR. BUCKENAM. 

MR. Editer, As i wuz kinder prunin round, in a little 
nussry sot out a year or 2 a go, the Dbait in the sennit 
cum inter my mine An so i took & Sot it to wut I call a 
nussry rime. I hev made sum onnable Gentlemun speak 
that dident speak in a Kind uv Poetikul lie sense the 
seeson is dreffle backerd up This way 

ewers as ushul 

ROSEA BIGLOW. i 



'* Here we stan* on the Constitution, by thunder ! 

It *s a fact o* wich ther 's bushils o* proofs ; 
Fer how could we trample on 't so, I wonder, 

Ef 't worn't thet it 's oilers under our hoofs?" 




THE BIGLOW PAPERS. lOl 

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; 

*' Human rights haint no more 

Right to come on this floor, 
No more 'n the man in the moon," sez he. 

*' The North haint no kind o' bisness with nothin', 

An' you 've no idee how much bother it saves ; 
We aint none riled by their frettin' an' frothin', 
We 're tised to lay in' the string on our slaves," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
Sez Mister Foote, 
*' I should like to shoot 
The holl gang, by the gret horn spoon ! " sez he. 

*' Freedom's Keystone is Slavery, thet ther 's no doubt 
on, 
It 's sutthin' thet 's — wha' d' ye call it ? — divine.. — 
An' the slaves thet we oilers make the most out on 
Air them north o' Mason an' Dixon's line," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
*' Fer all thet," sez Mangum, 
**'T would be better to hang *em, 
An' so git red on 'em soon," sez he. 

** The mass ough' to labor an' we lay on soffies, 
Thet's the reason I want to spread Freedom's area; 



102 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

It puts all the cunninest on us in office, 
An' reelises our Maker's orig'nal idee," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
" Thet's ez plain," sez Cass, 
" Ez thet some one's an ass, 
It's ez clear ez the sun is at noon," sez he. 



** Now don't go to say I'm the friend of oppression, 

But keep all your spare breath fercoolin' your broth, 
Fer I oilers hev strove (at least thet *s my impression) 
To make cussed free with the rights o' the North," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; — 
" Yes," sez Davis o' Miss., 
'*The perfection o' bliss 
Is in skinnin' thet same old coon," sez he. 



*' Slavery 's a thing thet depends on complexion, 

It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe ; 
Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection ! 
Wich of our onnable body 'd be safe? " 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
Sez Mister Hannegan, 
Afore he began agin, 
**Thet exception is quite oppertoon." sez he. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 103 

" Gen'nle Cass, Sir, you need n't be twitchin' your col- 
lar, 
Your merit 's quite clear by the dut on your knees. 
At the North we don't make no distinctions o' color; 
You can all take a lick at our shoes wen you please,'* 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
Sez Mister Jarnagin, 
*' They wunt hev to larn agin, 
They all on 'em know the old toon," sez he. 



" The slavery question aint no ways bewilderin'. 

North an' South hev one int'rest, it's plain to a glance ; 
No'thern men, like us patriarchs, don't sell their chil- 
drin, 
But they du sell themselves, ef they git a good chance," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
Sez Atherton here, 
** This is gittin' severe, 
I wish I could dive like a loon," sez he. 



** It '11 break up the Union, this talk about freedom, 
An' your fact'ry gals (soon ez we split) '11 make head, 

An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to lead 'em, 
'11 go to work raisin' promiscoous Ned," 



104 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 

'* Yes, the North," sez Colquitt, 

" Ef we Southerners all quit, 
Would go down like a busted balloon," sez he. 

** Jest look wut is doin', wut annyky 's brewin* 

In the beautiful clime o' the olive an' vine, 
All the wise aristoxy is tumblin' to ruin, 

An' the sankylots drorin' an' drinkin' their wine," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 

*' Yes," sez Johnson, *' in France 
They 're beginnin' to dance 
Beelzebub's own rigadoon," sez he. 

** The South 's safe enough, it don't feel a mite skeery, 

Our slaves in their darkness an' dut air tu blest 
Not to welcome with proud hallylugers the ery 

Wen our eagle kicks yourn from the naytional nest,'* 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
I ** O," sez Westcott o' Florida, 

** Wut treason is horrider 
Then our priv'leges tryin' to proon ? " sez he. 

^* It 's 'coz they 're so happy, thet, wen crazy sarpints 
Stick their nose in our bizness, we git so darned riled ; 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 105 

We think its our dooty to give pooty sharp hints, 

Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth shan't be spiled ** 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
*< Ah," sez Dixon H. Lewis, 
*' It perfectly true is 
Thet slavery 's airth's grettest boon," sez he. 



[It was said of old time, that riches have wings ; and, 
though this be not applicable in a literal strictness to the 
wealth of our patriarchal brethren of the South, yet it is 
clear that their possessions have legs, and an unaccountable 
propensity for using them in a northerly direction. I marvel 
that the grand jury of Washington did not find a true bill 
against the North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and 
Sayres. It would have been quite of a piece with the intelli- 
gence displayed by the South on other questions connected 
with slavery. I think that no ship of state was ever freighted 
with a more veritable Jonah than this same domestic institu- 
tion of ours. Mephistopheles himself could not feign so bit- 
terly, so satirically sad a sight as this of three millions of 
human beings crushed beyond help or hope by this one 
mighty argument, — Our fathers knew no better! Neverthe- 
less, it is the unavoidable destiny of Jonahs to be cast over- 
board sooner or later. Or shall we try the experiment of 
hiding our Jonah in a safe place, that none may lay hands 
on him to make jetsam of him? Let us, then, with equal 
forethought and wisdom, lash ourselves to the anchor, and 
await, in pious confidence, the certain result. Perhaps our 
suspicious passenger is no Jonah after all, being black. For 
it is well known that a superintending Providence made a 



106 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

kind of sandwich of Ham and his descendants, to be de» 
voured by the Caucasian race. 

In God's name, let all, who hear nearer and nearer the 
hungry moan of the storm and the growl of the breakers, 
speak out ! But, alas ! we have no right to interfere. If a 
man pluck an apple of mine, he shall be in danger of the 
justice ; but if he steal my brother, I must be silent. Who 
says this? Our Constitution, consecrated by the callous 
suetude of sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument 
in the left hand of him whose right hand clutches the clotted 
slave-whip. Justice, venerable with the undethronable 
majesty of countless aeons, says, — Speak! The Past, vvise, 
with the sorrows and desolations of ages, from amid her' 
shattered fanes and wolf-housing palaces, echoes, — Speak! 
Nature, through her thousand trumpets of freedom, her 
stars, her sunrises, her seas, her winds, her cataracts, her 
mountains blue with cloudy pines, blows jubilant encourage- 
ment, and cries, — Speak ! From the soul's trembling abysses 
the still, small voice not vaguely murmurs, — Speak ! But, 
alas I the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, 
M. C, say, — Be Dumb ! 

It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of inquiry in this 
connection, whether, on that momentous occasion when the 
goats and the sheep shall be parted, the Constitution and 
the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M. C, will be expected to 
take their places on the left as our hircine vicars. i 

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus f 
Quern patronum rogaturus f 

There is a point where toleration sinks into sheer baseness 
and poltroonery. The toleration of the worst leads us to 
look on what is barely better as good enough, and to wor* 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 107 

ship what is only moderately good. Woe to that man, or 
that nation, to whom mediocrity has become an ideal ! 

Has our experiment of self-government succeeded, if it 
barely manage to mb and go f Here, now, is a piece of 
barbarism which Christ and the nineteenth century say 
shall cease, and which Messrs. Smith, Brown, and others 
say shall not cease. I would by no means deny the eminent 
respectability of these gentlemen, but I confess, that, in such 
a wrestling-match, I cannot help having my fears for them, 

Disciie justiiiam, moniti, et non temnere divos. 

H. W.] 



No. VI. 

THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED. 

[At the special instance of Mr. Biglow, I preface the fol- 
lowing satire with an extract from a sermon preached dur- 
ing the past summer, from Ezekiel xxxiv. 2 : — " Son of man, 
prophesy against the shepherds of Israel." Since the Sab- 
bath on which this discourse was delivered, the editor of the 
"Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss" has unaccountably 
absented himself from our house of worship. 

«' I know of no so responsible position as that of the public 
journalist. The editor of our day bears the same relation to 
his time that the clerk bore to the age before the invention 
of printing. Indeed, the position which he holds is that 
■which the clergyman should hold even now. But the 
clergyman chooses to walk off to the extreme edge of the 
world, and to throw such seed as he has clear over into that 
darkness which he calls the Next Life. As li fiexi did not 
mean nearest, and as if any life were nearer than that imme- 
diately present one which boils and eddies all around him 
at the caucus, the ratification meeting, and the polls ! Who 
taught him to exhort men to prepare for eternity, as for 
some future era of which the present forms no integral part? 
The furrow which Time is even now turning runs through 
the Everlasting, and in that must he plant, or nowhere. 
Yet he would fain believe and teach that we ?cc^ going \.q 
have more of eternity than we have now. 'X\i\s going of his 
(108) 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 109 

is like that of the auctioneer, on which ^^«^ follows before 
we have made up our minds to bid, — in which manner, not 
three months back, I lost an excellent copy of Chappelow 
on Job. So it has come to pass that the preacher, instead 
of being a living force, has faded into an emblematic figure 
at christenings, weddings, and funerals. Or, if he exercise 
any other function, it is as keeper and feeder of certain the- 
ologic dogmes, which, when occasion offers, he unkennels 
with a siaboy I " to bark and bite as 't is their nature to," 
whence that reproach of odium theologicum has arisen. 

" Meanwhile, see what a pulpit the editor mounts daily, 
sometimes with a congregation of fifty thousand within reach 
of his voice, and never so much as a nodder, even, among 
them ! And from what a Bible can he choose his text, — a 
Bible which needs no translation, and which no priestcraft 
can shut and clasp from the laity, — the open volume of the 
world, upon which, with a pen of sunshine or destroying fire, 
the inspired Present is even now writing the annals of God! 
Methinks the editor who should understand his calling, and 
be equal thereto, would truly deserve that title of ffoi^^i/ \a.i^v, 
which Homer bestows upon princes. He would be the 
Moses of our nineteenth century, and whereas the old Sinai, 
silent now, is but a common mountain stared at by the ele- 
gant tourist and crawled over by the hammering geologist, 
he must find his tables of the new law here among factories 
and cities in this Wilderness of Sin (Numbers xxxiii. 12) 
called Progress of Civilization, and be the captain of our 
Exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order. 

" Nevertheless, our editor will not come so far within even 
the shadow ot Sinai as Mahomet did, but chooses rather to 
construe Moses by Joe Smith. He takes up the crook, not 
that the sheep may be fed, but that he may never want a 
warm woollen suit and a joint of mutton. 



110 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

ImmemoVj 0, Jidei, pecorumque oblite ttiorum ! 

For which reason I would derive the name editor not so 
much from edo, to pubhsh, as from edo, to eat, that being 
the pecuHar profession to which he esteems himself called. 
He blows up the flames of political discord for no other 
occasion than that he may thereby handily boil his own pot. 
I believe there are two thousand of these mutton-loving^ 
shepherds in the United States, and of these, how many 
have even the dimmest perception of their immense power,and 
the duties consequent thereon ? Here and there, haply, 
one. Nine hundred and ninety-nine labor to impress upon 
the people the great principles of Tweedledum, and other 
nine hundred and ninety-nine preach with equal earnestness 
the gospel according to Tweedledee."' — H. W.] 

I DU believe in Freedom's cause, 

Ez fur away ez Paris is ; 
I love to see her stick her claws 

In them infarnal Pharisees ; 
It *s wal enough agin a king 

To dror resolves an' triggers,—. 
But libbaty 's a kind o' thing 

Thet don't agree with niggers. 



I du believe the people want 
A tax on teas an' coffees, 

Thet nothin' aint extravygunt,— 
Purvidin' I'm in office; 



THE BIG LOW PAPERS. Ill 

Fer I hev loved my country sence 

My eye-teeth filled their sockets, 
An' Uncle Sam I reverence, 

Partic'larly his pockets. 

I du believe in any plan 

O' levyin' the taxes, 
Ez long ez, like a lumberman, 

I git jest wut I axes : 
I go free-trade thru thick an' thin, 

Because it kind o* rouses 
The folks to vote, — an' keeps us in 

Our quiet customhouses. 

I du believe it's wise an' good 

To sen' out furrin missions, 
Thet is, on sartin understood 

An' orthydox conditions; — 
I mean nine thousan' dolls, per ann., 

Nine thousan' more fer outfit, 
An' me to recommend a man 

The place 'ould jest about fit. 

I du believe in special ways 

O' prayin' an' convartin' ; 
The bread comes back in many days, 

An' buttered, tu, fer sartin ; — 



112 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

I mean in prey in' till one busts 
On wut the party chooses, 

An' in convartin' public trusts 
To every privit uses. 

I du believe hard coin the stuff 

Fer 'lectioneers to spout on ; 
The people's oilers soft enough 

To make hard money out on ; 
Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his, 

An' gives a good-sized junk to all,— 
I don't care how hard money is, 

Ez long ez mine's paid punctcoal. 

I du believe with all my soul 

In the gret Press's freedom, 
To pint the people to the goal 

An' in the traces lead 'em ; 
Palsied the arm thet forges yokes 

At my fat contracts squintin', 
An' withered be the nose thet pokes 

Inter the gov'ment printin' ! 

I du believe thet I should give 

Wut's his'n unto Caesar, 
Fer it's by him I move an' live, 

Frum him my bread an' cheese air; 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. US 

I du believe thet all o' me 

Doth bear his souperscription,-— 
Will, conscience, honor, honesty, 

An' things o' thet description. 

I du believe in prayer an' praise 

To him thet hez the grantin* 
O' jobs, — in every thin' thet pays, 
But most of all in Cantin' ; 
This doth my cup with marcies fill. 

This lays all thought o' sin to rest,— 
I don't believe in princerple, 

But, O, I du in interest. 

I du believe in bein' this 

Or thet, ez it may happen 
One way or t'other hendiest is 

To ketch the people nappin*; 
It aint by princerples nor men 

My preudunt course is steadied, — 
I scent wich pays the best, an' then 

Go into it baldheaded. 

I du believe thet hold in' slaves 

Comes nat'ral tu a Presidunt, 
Let 'lone the rovvdedow it saves 

To hev a wal-broke precedunt ; 



114 THE BIG LOW PAPERS. 

Fer any office, small or gret, 

I could n't ax with no face, 
Without I'd ben, thru dry an' wet, 
Th' unrizzest kind o' doughface. 

I du believe wutever trash 

'11 keep the people in blindness, — 
Thet we the Mexicans can thrash 

Right inter brotherly kindness, 
Thet bombshells, grape, an' powder *n* ball 

Air gooy-will's strongest magnets, 
Thet peace, to make it stick at all. 

Must be druv in with bagnets. 

In short, I firmly du believe 

In Humbug generally, 
Fer it's a thing thet I perceive 

To hev a solid vally ; 
This heth my faithful shepherd ben, 

In pasturs sweet heth led me, 
An' this '11 keep the people green 

To feed ez they hev fed me. 

[I subjoin here another passage from my before-mentioned 
discourse. 

•* Wonderful, to him that has eyes to see it rightly, is the 
newspaper. To me, for example, sitting on the critical 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 115 

front bench of the pit, in my study here in Jaalam, the ad- 
vent of my weekly journal is as that of a strolhng theatre, 
or rather of a puppet-show, on whose stage, narrow as it is, 
the tragedy, comedy, and farce of life are played in little. 
Behold the whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in a 
brown paper wrapper ! 

" Hither, to my obscure corner, by wind or steam, on 
horseback or dromedary-back, in the pouch of the Indian 
runner, or clicking over the magnetic wires, troop all the 
famous performers from the four quarters of the globe. 

I Looked at from a point of criticism, tiny puppets they seem 
all, as the editor sets up his booth upon my desk and offi- 
ciates as showman. Now I can truly see how little and 
transitory is life. The earth appears almost as a drop of 
vinegar, on which the solar microscope of the imagination 
must be brought to bear in order to make out anything dis- 
tinctly. That animalcule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis 
Philippe, just landed on the coast of England, That other, 
in the gray surtout and cocked hat, is Napoleon Bonaparte 
Smith, assuring France that she need apprehend no inter- 
ference from him in the present alarming juncture. At that 
spot, where you seem to see a speck of something in motion, 
is an immense mass meeting. Look sharper, and you will 
see a mite brandishing his mandibles in an excited manner. 

'That is the great Mr. Soandso, defining his position amid 
tumultuous and irrepressible cheers. That infinitesimal 
creature, upon whom some score of others, as minute as he, 
are gazing in open-mouthed admiration, is a famous philos- 
opher, expounding to a select audience their capacity for 
the Infinite. That scarce discernible pufflet of smoke and 
dust is a revolution. That speck there is a reformer, just 
arranging the lever with which he is to move the world. 
And lo, there creeps forward the shadow of a skeleton that 



116 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

blows one breath between its grinning teeth, and all our dis- 
tinguished actors are whisked off the slippery stage into the 
dark Beyond. 

" Yes, the little show box has its solemner suggestions. 
Now and then we catch a glimpse of a grim old man, who 
lays down a scythe and hour glass in the corner while he 
shifts the scenes. There, too, in the dim background, a 
■weird shape is ever delving. Sometimes he leans upon his 
mattock, and gazes, as a coach whirls by, bearing the newly 
married on their wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a 
babe brought home from christening. Suddenly (for the 
scene grows larger and larger as we look) a bony hand 
snatches back a performer in the midst of his part, and him, 
whom yesterday two infinities (past and future) would not 
suffice, a handful of dust is enough to cover and silence for- 
ever. Nay, we see the same fleshless fingers opening to 
clutch the showman himself, and guess, not without a shud- 
der, that they are lying in wait for spectator also. 

"Think of it: for three dollars a year I buy a season 
ticket to this great Globe Theatre, for which God would 
write the dramas (only that we like farces, spectacles, and 
the tragediesofApollyon better), whose scene-shifter is Time, 
and whose curtain is rung down by Death. 

" Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes as I am tear- 
ing off the wrapper of my newspaper. Then suddenly that 
otherwise too often vacant sheet becomes invested for me 
with a strange kind of awe. Look ! deaths and marriages, 
notices of inventions, discoveries, and books, lists of promo- 
tions, of killed, wounded, and missing, news of fires, acci- 
dents, of sudden wealth and as sudden poverty ; — I hold in I 
my hand the ends of myriad invisible electric conductors, 
along which tremble the joys, sorrows, wrongs, triumphs, 
hopes, and despairs of as many men and women every- 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 117 

where. So that upon that mood of mind which seems to 
isolate me from mankind as a spectator of their puppet- 
pranks, another supervenes, in which I feel that I, too, un- 
known and unheard of, am yet of some import to my fellows. 
For, through my newspaper here, do not families take pains 
to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death among them ? 
Are not here two who would have me know of their mar- 
riage ? And, strangest of all, is not this singular person 
anxious to have me informed that he has received a fresh 
supply of Dimitry Bruisgins ? But to none of us does the 
Present (even if for a moment discerned as such) continue 
miraculous. We glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get 
used to Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and 
to-morrow this sheet, in which a vision was let down to me 
from Heaven, shall be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the 
platter for a beggar's broken victuals." — H. W.] 



No. VII. 
A LETTER 

FROM A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN ANSWER TO 
SUTTIN QUESTIONS PROPOSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW, 
INCLOSED IN A NOTE FROM MR BIGLOW TO S. H. GAY, 
ESQ., EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-SLAVERY STAND- 
ARD. 

[Curiosity may be said to be the quality which pre- 
eminently distinguishes and segregates man from the lower 
animals. As we trace the scale of animated nature down- 
ward, we find this faculty of the mind (as it may truly be 
called) diminished in the savage, and quite extinct in the 
brute. The first object which civilized may proposes to him- 
self I take to be the finding out whatsoever he can concern- 
ing his neighbors. Nihil huuianwn a vie alieman puto ; I 
am curious about even John Smith. The desire next in 
strength to this (an opposite pole, indeed, of the same mag- 
net) is that of communicating intelligence. 

Men in general may be divided into the inquisitive and 
the communicative. To the first class belong Peeping 
Toms, eavesdroppers, navel-contemplating Brahmins, 
metaphysicians, travelers, Empedocleses, spies, the various 
societies for promoting Rhinothism, Columbuses, Yankees, 
discoverers, and men of science, who present themselves to 
the mind as so many marks of interrogation wandering up 
and down the world, or sitting in studies and labora- 
(118) 



S lO 

■ "PI 

Dra- I 

m 



THE BIGLOW TAPERS. 119 

tories. The second class I should again subdivide into 
four. In the first subdivision I would rank those who have- 
an itch to tell us about themselves, — as keepers of diaries^ 
insignificant persons generally, Montaignes, Horace Wal- 
poles, autobiographers, poets. The second includes those 
who are anxious to impart information concerning other peo- 
ple, — as historians, barbers, and such. To the third belong; 
those who labor to give us intelligence about nothing at all^ 
— as novelists, political orators, the large majority of authors,, 
preachers, lecturers, and the like. In the fourth come those 
who are communicative from motives of public benevolence, 
— as finders of mares'-nests and bringers of ill news. Each of 
us two-legged fowls without feathers embraces all these sub- 
divisions in himself to a greater or less degree, for none 
of us so much as lays an egg, or incubates a chalk one^ 
but straightway the whole barnyard shall know it by our 
cackle or our cluck. Omnibus hoc vitium est. There are 
different grades in all these classes. One will turn his tel- 
escope toward a backyard, another toward Uranus ; one 
will tell you that he dined with Smith, another that he 
supped with Plato. In one particular, all men may be con- 
sidered as belonging to the first grand division, inasmuch 
as they all seem equally desirous of discovering the mote in 
their neighbor's eye. 

To one or another of these species every human being may 
safely be referred. I think it beyond a peradventure that 
Jonah prosecuted some inquiries into the digestive ap- 
paratus of whales, and that Noah sealed up a letter in an 
empty bottle, that news in regard to him might not be want- 
ing in case of the worst. They had else been super or sub- 
ter human. I conceive, also, that, as there are certain; 
persons who continually peep and pry at the keyhole of 
that mysterious door through which, sooner or later, we all) 



120 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

make our exits, so there are doubtless ghosts fidgetting and 
fretting on the other side of it, because they have no means 
•of conveying back to the world the scraps of news they have 
picked up. For there is an answer ready somewhere to 
every question, the great law oi give and take runs through 
all nature, and if we see a hook, we may be sure that an eye 
is waiting for it. I read in every face I meet a standing 
advertisement of information wanted in regard to A. B., or 
that the friends of C. D. can hear of him by application to 
such a one. 

It was to gratify the two great passions of asking and 
answering that epistolary correspondence was first invented. 
Letters (for by this usurped title espistles are now commonly 
known) are of several kinds. First, there are those which 
are not letters at all, — as letters patent, Httles dismissory, let- 
ters inclosing bills, letters of administration, Pliny's letters, 
letters of diplomacy, of Cato, of Mentor, of Lords Lyttel- 
ton, Chesterfield, and Orrery, of Jacob Behmen, Seneca 
{whom St. Jerome includes in his list of sacred writers), let- 
ters from abroad, from sons in college to their fathers, letters 
•of marque, and letters generally, which are in no wise letters 
of mark. Second, are real letters, such as those of Gray, 
Cowper, Walpole, Howel, Lamb, the first letters from chil- 
dren (printed in staggering capitals) Letters from New 
York, letters of credit, and others, interesting for the sake 
of the writer or the thing written. I have read also letters 
from Europe by a gentleman named Pinto, containing some 
curious gossip, and which I hope to see collected for the 
benefit of the curious. There are, besides, letters addressed 
to posterity, — as epitaphs, for example, written for their own 
monuments by monarchs, whereby we have lately become 
possessed of the names of several great conquerors and 
3cings of kings, hitherto unheard of and still unpronounce- 



THE BIG LOW PAPERS, 121 

able, but valuable to the student of the entirely dark ages. 
The letter which St. Peter sent to King Pepin in the year of 
grace 755 I would place in a class by itself, as also the let- 
ters of candidates, concerning which I shall dilate more fully 
in a note at the end of the following poem. At present, sat 
prata biberunt. Only, concerning the shape of letters, they 
are all either square or oblong, to which general figures, 
circular letters and round-robins also conform themselves. 
— H. W.] 



Deer sir its gut to be the fashun now to rite letters to 
the candid 8s and i wus chose at a publick Meetin in 
Jaalam to du wut wus nessary fur that town, i writ to 
271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. tha air called can- 
did 8s but I don't see nothin candid about em. this 
here i wich I send wus thought satty's factory. I dunno 
as it's ushle to print Poscrips, but as all the ansers I got 
bed the saim, I sposed it wus best, times has gretly 
changed. Formaly to knock a man ihto a cocked hat 
wus to use him up, but now it ony gives him a chance 
fur the cheef madgustracy. — H. B. 



Dear Sir, — You wish to know my notions 
On sartin pints thet rile the land ; 

There 's nothin' thet my natur so shuns 
Ez bein' mum or underhand ; 



122 THE BIG LOW PAPERS. 

I *m a straight-spoken kind o* creetur 
Thet blurts right out vvut 's in his head, 

An' ef I 've one pecooler feetur, 
It is a nose thet wunt be led. 

So, to begin at the beginning 

An* come direcly to the pint, 
I think the country's underpinnin' 

Is some consid'ble out o' jint ; 
I aint agoin' to try your patience 

By tellin' who done this or thet, 
I don't make no insinooations, 

I jest let on I smell a rat. 

Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so, 

But, ef the public think I 'm wrong, 
I wunt deny but wut I be so, — 

An', fact, it don't smell very strong; 
My mind *s tu fair to lose its balance 

An' say wich party hez most sense ; 
There may he folks o* greater talence 

Thet can't set stiddier on the fence. 

I 'm an eclectic ; ez to choosin* 

'Twixt this an* thet, I 'm plaguy lawth; 

I leave a side thet looks like losin', 

But (wile there *s doubt) I stick to both; 



THE BIG LOW PAPERS. 123 

I Stan* upon the Constitution, 

Ez preudunt statesmun say, who 've planned 
A way to git the most profusion 

O' chances ez to 7vare they '11 stand. 

Ez fer the war, I go agin it, — 

I mean to say I kind o' du, — 
Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it, 

The best way wuz to fight it thru ; 
Not but wut abstract war is horrid, 

I sign to thet with all my heart, — 
But civlyzation doos git forrid 

Sometimes upon a powder-cart. 

About thet darned Proviso matter 

I never hed a grain o* doubt. 
Nor I aint one my sense to scatter 

So 's no one could n't pick it out ; 
My love fer North an' South is equil, 

So I '11 jest answer plump an' frank. 
No matter wut may be the sequil, — 

Yes, Sir, I aj?t agin a Bank. 

Ez to the answerin* o' questions, 

I 'm an off ox at bein' druv, 
Though I aint one thet ary test shuns 

*11 give our folks a helpin' shove ; 



124 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

Kind o' promiscoous I go it 

Fer the hoU country, an' the ground 

I take, ez nigh ez I can show it, 
Is pooty gen'ally all round. 

I don't appruve o' givin' pledges; 

You 'd ough' to leave a feller free, 
An' not go knockin' out the wedges 

To ketch his fingers in the tree ; 
Pledges air awfle breachy cattle 

Thet preudunt farmers don't turn out,- 
Ez long 'z the people git their rattle, 

Wut is there fer 'm to grout about ? 

Ez to the slaves, there's no confusion 
In my idees consarnin' them, — 

/ think they air an Institution, 
A sort of — yes, jest so, — ahem : 

Do / own any? Of my merit 
' On thet pint you yourself may jedge : 

All is, I never drink no sperit. 

Nor I haint never signed no pledge. 

Ez to my principles, I glory 
In hevin' nothin' o' the sort 

I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory, 
I'm jest a candidate, in short ; 



THE BIGLOW TAPERS. 125 

Thet's fair an' square an' parpendicler, 

But, ef the Public cares a fig 
To hev me an' thin* in particler, 

VVy, I'm a kind o' peri-wig. 

P. S. 
Ez we're a sort o' privateerin', 

O' course, you know, it's sheer an' sheer. 
An' there is sutthin* wuth your hearin' 

I'll mention in your privit ear ; 
Ef you git me inside the White House, 

Your head with ile I'll kin* o* 'nint 
By gittin' you inside the Lighthouse 

Down to the eend o' Jaalam Pint. 

An' ez the North hez took to brustlin' 

At bein' scrougcd frum off the roost, 
I'll tell ye wut '11 save all tusslin' 

An' give our side a harnsome boost, — 
Tell 'em thet on the Slavery question 

I'm RIGHT, although to speak I'm lawth; 
This gives you a safe pint to rest on, 

An' leaves me frontin' South by North. 

[And now of epistles candidatial, which are of two kinds, 
— namely, letters of acceptance, and letters definitive of 
position. Our republic, on the eve of an election, may 



126 THE BIGLOW PAPEBS. 

safely enough be called a republic of letters. Epistolary 
composition becomes then an epidemic, whch seizes one 
candidate after another, not seldom cutting short the thread 
of political life. It has come to such a pass, that a party 
dreads less the attacks of its opponents than a letter from 
its candidate. Litera scripta matiet, and it will go hard if 
something bad cannot be made of it. General Harrison, it 
is well understood, was surrounded, during his candidacy, 
with the cordon sajiitaire of a vigilance committee. No 
prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously deprived of 
writing materials. The soot was scraped carefully from the 
chimney-places ; outposts of expert rifle-shooters rendered 
it sure death for any goose (who came clad in feathers) to 
approach within a certain limited distance of North Bend ; 
and all domestic fowls about the premises were reduced to 
the condition of Plato's original man. By these precautions 
the General was saved. Parva compo?iere juagnis, I re- 
member, that, when party-spirit once ran high among my 
people, upon occasion of the choice of a new deacon, I, 
having my preferences, yet not caring too openly to express 
them, made use of an innocent fraud to bring about that re- 
sult which I deemed most desirable. My stratagem \\as no 
other than the throwing a copy of the Complete Letter- 
Writer in the way of the candidate whom I wished to defeat. 
He caught the infection, and addressed a short note to his 
constituents, in which the opposite party detected so many 
and so grave improprieties, (he had modelled it upon the 
letter of a young lady accepting a proposal of marriage,) 
that he not only lost his election, but, falling under a sus- 
picion of SabeUianism and I know not what, (tlie widow 
Endive assured me that he was a Paralipomenon, to her 
certain knowledge,) was forced to leave the town. Thus it 
is that the letter killeth. 



THE BIG LOW TAPERS. 127 

The object which candidates propose to themselves in 
writing is to convey no meaning at all. And here is a quite 
unsuspected pitfall into which they successively plunge 
headlong. For it is precisely in such cryptographies that 
mankind are prone to seek for and find a wonderful amount 
and variety of significance. Oinne ignotum pro initifico. 
How do we admire at the antique world striving to crack 
those oracular nuts from Delphi, Hammon, and elsewhere, 
in only one of which can I so much as surmise that any 
kernel had ever lodged ; that, namely, wherein Apollo con- 
fessed that he was mortal. One Didymus is, moreover, re- 
lated to have written six thousand books on the single sub- 
ject of grammar, a topic rendered only more tenebiific by 
the labors of his successors, and which seems still to pos- 
sess an attraction for authors in proportion as they can make 
nothing of it. A singular loadstone for theologians, also, is 
the Beast in the Apocalypse, whereof, in the course of my 
studies, I have noted two hundred and three several inter- 
pretations, each lethiferal to all the rest. No7i nostritm est 
tantas componere lites, yet I have myself ventured upon a 
two hundred and fourth, which I embodied in a discourse 
preached on occasion of the demise of the late usurper, 
Napoleon Bonaparte, and which quieted, in a large measure, 
the minds of my people. It is true that my views on this 
important point were ardently controverted by Mr. Shear- 
jashub Holden, the then preceptor of our academy, and in 
other particulars a very deserving and sensible young man, 
though possessing a somewhat limited knowledge of the 
Greek tongue. But his heresy struck down no deep root, 
and, he having been lately removed by the hand of Provi- 
dence, I had the satisfaction of reaffirming my cherished 
sentiments in a sermon preached upon the Lord's day im- 
mediately succeeding his funeral. This might seem like 



128 THE RIG LOW TAPERS. 

talcing an unfair advantage, did I not add that he had made 
provision in his last will (being celibate) for the publication 
of a posthumous tractate in support of his own dangerous 
opinions. 

I know of nothing in our modern times which approaches 
so nearly to the ancient oracle as the letter of a Presidential 
candidate. Now, among the Greeks, the eating of beans 
was strictly forbidden to all such as had it in mind to con- 
sult those expert amphibologists, and this same prohibition 
on the part of Pythagoras to his disciples is understood to 
imply an abstinence from politics, beans having been used 
as ballots. That other explication, quod videlicet sensus eo 
cibo obtimdi exisiimaret, though supported ///^^w/i et calcibus 
by many of the learned, and not wanting the countenance 
of Cicero, is confuted by the larger experience of New En- 
gland. On the whole, I think it safer to apply here the rule 
of interpretation which now generally obtains in regard to 
antique cosmogonies, myths, fables, proverbial expressions, 
and knotty points generally, which is, to find a common- 
sense meaning, and then select whatever can be imagined 
the most opposite thereto. In this way we arrive at the con* 
elusion, that the Greeks objected to the questioning of can- 
didates. And very properly, if, as I conceive, the chief 
point be not to discover what a person in that position is, or 
what he will do, but whether he can be elected. Vos exem' 
piaria Grccca nocturna versate manu, 7'ersate diurna. 

But, since an imitation of the Greeks in this particular 
(the asking of questions being one chief privilege of free- 
tnen) is hardly to be hoped for, and our candidates will an- 
swer, whether they are questioned or not, I would recom- 
mend that these ante-electionary dialogues should be carried 
on by symbols, as were the diplomatic correspondences of 
the Scythians and Macrobii, or confined to the language of 



THE BIG LOW PAPERS. 129 

signs, like the famous interview of Panurge and Goatsnose. 
A candidate might then convey a suitable reply to all com- 
mittees of inquiry by closing one eye, or by presenting them 
with a phial of Egyptian darkness to be speculated upon by 
their respective constituencies. These answers would be 
susceptible of whatever retrospective construction the exi- 
gencies of the political campaign might seem to demand, 
and the candidate could take his position on either side of 
the fence with entire consistency. Or, if letters must be 
written, profitable use might be made of the Dighton rock 
hieroglyphic or the cuneiform script, every fresh decipherer 
of which is enabled to educe a different meaning, whereby a 
sculptured stone or two supplies us, and will probably con- 
tinue to supply posterity, with a very vast and various body 
of authentic history. For even the briefest epistle in the 
ordinary chirography is dangerous. There is scarce any 
style so compressed that superfluous words may not be de- 
tected in it. A severe critic might curtail that famous brev- 
ity of Caesar's by two-thirds, drawing his pen through the 
supererogatory veni and vidi. Perhaps, after all, the surest 
footing of hope is to be found in the rapidly increasing ten- 
dency to demand less and less of qualification in candidates. 
Already have statesmanship, experience, and the possession 
(nay, the profession, even) of principles been rejected as 
superfluous, and may not the patriot reasonably hope that 
the ability to write will follow ? At present, there may l^e 
death in pot-hooks as well as pots, the loop of a letter miiy 
suffice for a bow-string, and all the dreadful heresies of Ami- 
slavery may lurk in a flourish. — H. W.] 



No. VIII. 

A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, Esq. 

[In the following epistle, we behold Mr. Sawin returning, 
a miles emeritus^ to the bosom of his family. Quaiituin 7)iu- 
tatus ! The good Father of us all had doubtless intrusted to 
the keeping of this child of his certain faculties of a con- 
structive kind. He had put in him a share of that vital 
force, the nicest economy of every minute atom of which is 
necessaiy to the perfect development of Humanity. He 
had given him a brain and heart, and so had equipped his 
soul with the two strong wings of knowledge and love, 
whereby it can mount to hang its nest under the eaves of 
heaven. And this child, so dowered, he had intrusted to 
the keeping of his vicar, the State. How stands the ac- 
count of that stewardship ? The State, or Society, (call her 
by what name you will,) had taken no manner of thought 
of him till she saw him swept out into the street, the pitiful 
leavings of last night's debauch, with cigar-ends, lemon- 
parings, tobacco-quids, slops, vile stenches, and the whole 
loathsome next-morning of the barroom, — an own child of 
the Almighty God ! I remember him as he was brought to 
be christened, a ruddy, rugged babe ; and now there he 
■wallows, reeking, seething, — the dead corpse, not of a man, 
but of a soul, — a putrefying lump, horrible for the life that 
is in it. Comes the wind of heaven, that good Samaritan, 
and parts the hair upon his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss 
thobc parched, cracked lips ; the morning opens upon him 
(130) 



li 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 131 

her eyes full of pitying sunshine, the sky yearns down to 
him, — and there he lies fermenting. O sleep ! let me not 
profane thy holy name by calling that stertorous uncon- 
sciousness a slumber ! By and by comes along the State, 
God's vicar. Does she say, — " My poor, forlorn foster- 
child ! Behold here a force which I will make dig and 
plant and build for me " ? Not so, but, — " Here is a recruit 
ready-made to my hand, a piece of destroying energy lying 
unprofitably idle." So she claps an ugly gray suit on him, 
puts a musket in his grasp, and sends him off, with Guber- 
natorial and other godspeeds, to do duty as a destroyer. 

I made one of the crowd at the last Mechanics' Fair, and, 
with the rest, stood gazing in wonder at a perfect machine, 
with its soul of fire, its boiler-heart that sent the hot blood 
pulsing along the iron arteries, and its thews of steel. And 
while I was admiring the adaptation of means to end, the 
harmonious involutions of contrivance, and the never-be- 
wildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, the 
imperious engine's lackey and drudge, whose sole office was 
to let fall, at intervals, a drop or two of oil upon a certain 
joint. Then my soul said within me, See there a piece of 
mechanism to which that other you marvel at is but as the 
rude first effort of a child, — a force w^hich not merely suffices 
to set a few wheels in r >tion, but which can send an im- 
pulse all through the inf .ite future, — a contrivance, not for 
turning out pins, or sti .hing buttonholes, but for making 
Hamlets and Lears. And yet this thing of iron shall be 
housed, waited on, guarded from rust and dust, and it shall 
be a crime but so much as to scratch it with a pin ; while 
the other, with its fire of God in .^ shall be buffeted hither 
and thither, and finally sent care, illy a thousand miles to 
be the target for a Mexican cannon-. jail. Unthrifty Mother 
State ! My heart burned within me for pity and indigna- 



132 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

tion, and I renewed this covenant with my own soul, — In 
aliis mansuetus ero, at, in blasphemiis contra Christum^ non 
ita.—Yi, W.] 

I SPOSE you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul 

o' me, 
Exacly ware I be myself, — meanin' by thet the hoU o' 

me. 
Wen I left hum, I hed two legs, an* they worn't bad 

ones neither, 
(The scaliest trick they ever played wuz bringin* on me 

hither,) 
Now one on 'em *s I dunno ware; — they thought I wuz 

adyin', 
An* sawed it off because they said 'twuz kin' o' mor- 

tifyin' ; 
I 'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I don't see, nuther, 
Wy one should take to feelin' cheap a minnit sooner *n 

t'other, 
Sence both wuz equilly to blame ; but things is ez they 

be ; 
It took on so they took it off, an* thet *s enough fer 

me : 
There 's one good thing, though, to be said about my 

wooden new one, — 
The liquor can*t git into it ez 't used to in the true one; 



W 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 133 

So it saves drink; an' then, besides, a feller could n't 

beg 
A gretter blessin' then to hev one oilers sober peg ; 
It 's true a chap 's in want o' two fer follerin' a drum, 
But all the march I 'm up to now is jest to Kingdom 

Come. 

I 've lost one eye, but thet *s a loss it's easy to supply 
Out o' the glory thet I 've gut, fer thet is all my eye; 
An' one is big enough, I guess, by diligently usin* it, 
To see all I shall ever git by way o' pay fer losin* it ; 
Off'cers, I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an* 

kickins, 
Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter the fattest pickins; 
So, ez the eye 's put fairly out, I '11 larn to go without it, 
An' not allow myself to be no gret put out about it. 
Now, le' me see, thet is n't all; I used, 'fore leavin* 

Jaalam, 
To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems 

to ail 'em : 
Ware's my left hand ? O, darn it, yes, I recollect wut's 

come on 't ; 
I haint no left arm but my right, an' thet 's gut jest a 

thumb on 't ; 
It aint so hendy ez it wuz to cal'late a sum on 't. 



134 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

I 've hed some ribs broke, — six (I b'lieve), — I haint kep' 

no account on 'em ; 
Wen pensions git to be the talk, I '11 settle the amount 

on 'em. 
An' now I'm speakin' about ribs, it kin' o' brings to mind 
One thet I could n't never break, — the one I lef behind ; 
Ef you should see her, jest clear out the spout o' your 

invention 
An' pour the longest sweetnin' in about an annooal 

pension, 
An* kin o' hint (in case, you know, the critter should 

refuse to be 
Consoled) I aint so 'xpensive now to keep ez wut I used 

to be; 
There 's one arm less, ditto one eye, an' then the leg 

thet 's wooden 
Can be took off an' sot away wenever ther' 's a puddin'. 

I spose you think I 'm comin' back ez opperlunt tz 
thunder, j 

With shiploads o' gold images an' varus sorts o' plunder; 

Wal, 'fore I vuUinteered, I thought this country wuz a 

sort o' ^ 

Canaan, a reg'lar Promised Land flowin' with rum an' 
water, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 13^ 

Ware propaty growed up like time, without no cultiva^ 

tion, 
An' gold wuz dug ez taters be among our Yanke^^ 

nation, 
Ware nateral advantages were pufficly amazin*, 
Ware every rock there wuz about with precious stuns '^ 

wuz blazin', 
Ware mill-sites filled the country up ez thick ez you. 

could cram 'em, 
An' desput rivers run about abeggin* folks to dam 'em f 
Then there were meetinhouses, tu, chockful o' gold an'^ 

silver 
Thet you could take, an* no one could n't hand ye in no- 
bill fer ;— 
Thet 's wut I thought afore I went, thet 's wut then^' 

fellers told us 
Thet stayed to hum an' speechified an' to the buzzards^ 

sold us ; 
I thought thet gold mines could be gut cheaper than- 

china asters. 
An' see myself acomin' back like sixty Jacob Astors ,-' 
But sech idees soon melted down an' did n't leave a" 

grease-spot ; 
I vow my holl sheer o' the spiles would n't come nigh a 

V spot ; 



136 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

Although, most anywares we've ben, you need n't break 

no locks. 
Nor run no kin' o' risks, to fill your pocket full o' rocks. 
I guess I mentioned in my last some o* the nateral 

feeturs 
O' this all-fiered buggy hole in th' way o' awfle creeturs. 
But I fergut to name (new things to speak on so 

abounded) 
How one day you '11 most die o' thust, an' 'fore the next 

git drownded. 
The clymit seems to me jest like a teapot made o' 

pewter 
Our Prudence hed, thet would n't pour (all she could 

du) to suit her ; 
Fust place the leaves 'ould choke the spout, so 's not a 

drop 'ould dreen out, 
Then Prude 'ould tip an' tip an' tip, till the hoU kit bust 

clean out, 
The kiver-hinge-pin bein' lost, tea-leaves an' tea an' 

kiver 
'ould all come down kerswosh ! ez though the dam 

broke in a river. 
Jest so 't is here j hoU months there aint a day o' rainy 

weather. 
An' jest ez th' officers 'ould be alayin' heads together 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 137 

Ez t' how they 'd mix their drink at sech a milingtary 

deepot, — 
*T 'ould pour ez though the lid wuz off the everlastin' 

teapot. 
The cons'quence is, thet I shall take, wen I'm allowed to 

leave here, 
One piece o' propaty along, — an' thet 's the shakin' 

fever ; 
It 's reggilar employment, though, an* thet aint thought 

to harm one. 
Nor 't aint so tiresome ez it wuz with t' other leg an' 

arm on ; 
An' it 's a consolation, tu, although it doos n't pay, 
To hev it said you 're some gret shakes in any kin' o' way. 
*T worn't very long, I tell ye wut, I thought o' fortin- 

makin', — 
One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an* next ez good ez 

bakin', — 
I^One day abrilin' in the sand, then smoth'rin* in the 

mashes, — 
Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess o* hacks an* 

smashes. 
But then, thinks I, at any rate there 's glory to be hed, — 
Thet 's an investment, arter all, thet may n't turn out so 

bad; 



138 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

But somehow, wen we 'd fit an' licked, I oilers found 

the thanks 
Gut kin' o' lodged afore they come ez low down ez the 

ranks ; 
The Gin'rals gut the biggest sheer, the Cunnles next, an* 

so on, — 
We never gut a blasted mite o' glory ez I know on ; 
An' spose we hed, I wonder how you 're goin' to con- 
trive its 
Division so 's to give a piece to twenty thousand 

privits ; 
Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o' the brav'st 

one, 
You would n't git more 'n half enough to speak of on a 

grave-stun ; 
We git the licks, — we 're jest the grist thet 's put into 

War's hoppers ; 
Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps pick up the 

coppers. 
It may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in 't, I 
An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole 

in 't ; 
But glory is a kin' o' thing / shan't pursue no furder, 
Coz thet 's the off'cers parquisite, — yourn 's on'y jest the 

murder. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 139* 

Wal, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at least there 's one 

Thing in the bills we aint hed yit, an' thet 's the glori- 
ous FUN ; 

Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persume we 

All day an' night shall revel in the halls o' Montezumy. 

I '11 tell ye wut my revels wuz, an' see how you would 
like 'em ; 

We never gut inside the hall : the nighest ever /come 

Wuz stan'in' sentry in the sun (an', fact, \\. seemed z. 
cent'ry) \ 

A ketchin' smells o* biled an* roast thet come out thru 
the entry. 

An* hearin', ez I sweltered thru my passes an' repasses, 

A rat-tat-too o' knives an' forks, a clinkty-clink o* 
glasses : 

I can't tell off the bill o* fare the Gin'rals hed inside; 

All I know is, thet out o* doors a pair o' soles wuz fried,. 

An' not a hundred miles away frum ware this child wuz 
posted, ; 

A Massachusetts citizen wuz baked an' biled an' roasted ; 

The on'y thing like revellin' thet ever come to me 

Wuz bein' routed out o' sleep by thet darned revelee. 

They say the quarrel *s settled now ; fer my part I 've 
some doubt on 't, 



140 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

*T *11 take more fish-skin than folks think to take the rile 

clean out on 't ; 
At any rate, I 'm so used up I can't do no more fightin', 
The on'y chance thet 's left to me is politics or writin' ; 
Now, ez the people *s gut to hev a milingtary man, 
An' I aint nothin' else jest now, I 've hit upon a plan ; 
The can'idatin' line, you know, 'ould suit me to a T, 
An' ef I lose, 't wunt hurt my ears to lodge another 

flea ; 
So I '11 set up ez can'idate fer any kin' o' office, 
(I mean fer any thet includes good easy-cheers an* 

soffies ; 
Fer ez to runnin' fer a place ware work 's the time o' 

day. 
You know thet 's wut I never did, — except the other 

way ; ) 
Ef it 's the Presidential cheer fer wich I 'd better run, 
Wut two legs any wares about could keep up with my 

one? 
There ain't no kin' o' quality in can'idates, it 's said, 
•So useful ez a wooden leg, — except a wooden liead ; 
There's nothin' aint so poppylar — (wy, it *s a parfect sin 
To think wut Mexico hez paid fer Santy Anny's pin ;) — 
Then I haint gut no principles, an', sence I wuz knee- 
high, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 141 

I never did hev any gret, ez you can testify ; 

I 'm decided peace-man, tu, an' go agin the war, — 

Fer now the holl on 't 's gone an' past, wut is there to 

go for ? 
Ef, wile you 're 'lectioneerin' round, some curus chaps 

should beg 
To know my views o* state affairs, jest answer wooden 

LEG ! 
Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an' kin' o' pry an' 

doubt 
An' ax fer sutthin' deffynit, jest say one eve put 

OUT ! 

Thet kin' o' talk I guess you '11 find '11 answer to a 
charm, 

An' wen you 're druv tu nigh the wall, hoi' up my miss- 
in' arm ; 

Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, put on a 
vartoous look 

An' tell 'em thet 's percisely wut I never gin nor — 
took ! 

Then you can call me ** Timbertoes," — thet 's wut the 

people likes \ 
Sutthin' combinin' morril truth with phrases sech ez 

strikes ; 



142 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

Some say the people 's fond o' this, or thet, or wut you 
please, — 

I tell ye wut the people want is jest correct idees ; 

*' Old Timbertoes," you see, 's a creed it *s safe to be 
quite bold on, 

There 's nothin' in 't the other side can any ways git 
hold on ; 

It 's a good tangible idee, a sutthin' to embody 

Thet valooable class o' men who look thru brandy- 
toddy ; 

It gives a Party Platform, tu, jest level with the mmd 

Of all right-thinkin*, honest folks thet mean to go it 
blind ; 

Then there air other good hooraws to dror on ez you 
need 'em, 

Sech ez the one-eyed Slarterer, the bloody Birdo- 

FREDUM : 

Them 's wut takes hold o' folks thet think, ez well ez o' 

the masses. 
An' makes you sartin o' the aid o* good men of all 

classes. 

There 's one thing I 'm in doubt about ; in order to be 

Presidunt, 
It *s absolutely ne'ssary to be a Southern residunt; 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 143 

The Constitution settles thet, an' also thet a feller 
Must own a nigger o' some sort, jet black, or brown, or 

yeller. 
Now I haint no objections agin particklar climes. 
Nor agin ownin' anythin' (except the truth sometimes), 
But, ez I haint no capital, up there among ye, may be, 
You might raise funds enough fer me to buy a low- 
priced baby. 
An' then, to suit the No'thern folks, who feel obleeged 

to say 
They hate an' cuss the very thing they vote fer every 

day, 
Say you 're assured I go full butt fer Libbaty's diffusion 
An* made the purchis on'y jest to spite the Institoo- 

tion ; — 
But, golly ! there's the currier's hoss upon the pavemenr 

pawin' ! 
I'll be more 'xplicit in my next. 
I Yourn, 

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. 



[We have now a tolerably fair chance of estimating how 
the balance-sheet stands between our returned volunteer and 
glory. Supposing the entries to be set down on both sides 
of the account in fractional parts of one hundred, we shall 
arrive at something like the following result : — 



144 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



^ 



Cr. B. Sawin, Esq., in account with (Blank) Glory. Dr, 
By loss of one leg, . . 20 To one 675th three cheers in 
do. one arm, . 15 Faneuil Hall, . . . 30 
do. four fingers, * 5 " do. do. on 

do. One eye, . 10 occasion of presentation of 
the breaking of six ribs, 6 sword to Colonel Wright, 2$ 
having served under " one suit of gray clothes 

Colonel Cushing one (ingeniously unbecoming), 15 

month, 44 " musical entertainments 

(drum and fife six months), 5 

" one dinner after return, i 

" chance of pension, . I 

" privilege of drawing 

long-bow during rest of 

natural life, ... '23 

IGO 100 

E. E. 

It would appear that Mr. Sawin found the actual feast 
curiously the reverse of the bill of fare advertised in Faneuil 
Hall and other places. His primary object seems to have 
been the making of his fortune. Quarenda pecunia 
primum, virtus post nwnmos. He hoisted sail for Eldorado, 
and shipwrecked on Point Tribulation. Quid non inortalia 
pectora cogis, auri sacra fames ? The speculation has some- 
times crossed my mind, in that dreary interval of drought 
which intervenes between quarterly stipendiary showers, 
that Providence, by the creation of a money-tree, might 
have simplified wonderfully the sometimes perplexing prob- 
lem of human life. We read of bread-trees, the butter for 
which lies ready-churned in Irish bogs. Milk-trees we are 
assured of in South America, and stout Sir John Hawkins 



THE BIG LOW PAPERS. 145 

testifies to water-trees in the Canaries. Boot-tress bear 
abundantly in Lynn and elsewhere ; and I have seen, in the 
entries of the wealthy, hat-trees with a fair show of fruit. 
A family-tree I once cultivated myself, and found therefrom 
but a scanty yield, and that quite tasteless and innutritious. 
Of trees bearing men we are not without examples ; as those 
in the park of Louis the Eleventh of France. Who has for- 
gotten, moreover, that olive-tree, growing in the Athenian's 
back-garden, with its strange uxorious crop, for the general 
propagation of which, as of a new and precious variety, the 
philosopher Diogenes, hitherto uninterested in arboricul- 
ture, was so zealous? In the j>'/T/rt of our own Southern 
States, the females of my family have called my attention to 
the china-tree. Not to multiply examples, I will barely add 
to my list the birch-tree, in the smaller branches of which 
has been implanted so miraculous a virtue for communicat- 
ing the Latin and Greek languages, and which may well, 
therefore, be classed among the trees producing necessaries 
ofhfe, — venerabile donum faiaiis virgcr. That money-trees 
existed in the golden age there want not prevalent reasons 
for our believing. For does not the old proverb, when it 
asserts that money does not grow on <fz^^;;>' bush, imply ^ 
fortiori that there were certain bushes which did produce it ? 
Again, there is another ancient saw to the effect that money 
is the root oi all evil. From which two adages it may be 
safe to infer that the aforesaid species of tree first degen- 
erated into a shrub, then absconded underground, and 
finally, in our iron age, vanished altogether. In favorable 
exposures it may be conjectured that a specimen or two sur- 
vived to a great age, as in the garden of the Hesperides ; 
and, indeed, what else could that tree in the Sixth ^neid 
have been, with a branch whereof the Trojan hero procured 
admission to a territory, for the entering of which money is a 
10 



146 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

surer passport than to a certain other more profitable (too) 
foreign kingdom ? Whether these speculations of mine have 
any force in them, or whether they will not rather, by most 
readers, be deemed impertinent to the matter in hand, is a 
question which I leave to the determination of an indulgent 
posterity. That there were, in more primitive and happier 
times, shops where money was sold, — and that, too, on 
credit and at a bargain, — I take to be matter of demonstra- 
tion. For what but a dealer in this article was that ^olus 
who supplied Ulysses with motive power for his fleet in 
bags ? What that Ericus, king of Sweden, who is said to 
have kept the winds in his cap? What, in more recent 
times, those Lapland Nomas who traded in favorable 
breezes? All which will appear the more clearly when we 
consider, that, even to this day, raising the wifidis prover- 
bial for raising money, and that brokers and banks were in- 
vented by the Venetians at a later period. 

And now for the improvement of this digression. I find 
a parallel to Mr. Sawin's fortune in an adventure of my 
own. For, shortly after I had first broached to myself the 
before-stated natural-historical and archceological tkeorics, 
as I was passing, ha^c Jiegotia pcnitus niecuin revoh'ciis, 
through one of the obscure suburbs of our New England 
metropolis, my eye was attracted by these words i} on a 
signboard, — Cheap Cash-Store. Here was at once the 
confirmation of my speculations, and the substance of niy 
hopes. Here lingered the fragment of a happier pa^t, or 
stretched out the first tremulous organic filament of a n ore 
fortunate future. Thus glowed the distant Mexico to the 
eyes of Sawin, as he looked through the dirty pane of the 
recruiting-office window, or speculated from the summit of 
that mirage-Pisgah which the imps of the bottle are so cun- 
ning in raising up. Already had my Alnaschar-fancy (even 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 147 

during that first half-believing glance) expended in various 
useful directions the funds to be obtained by pledging the 
manuscript of a proposed volume of discourses. Already 
did a clock ornament the tower of the Jaalam meeting- 
house, a gift appropriately, but modestly, commemorated 
in the parish and town records, both, for now many years, 
kept by myself. Already had my son Seneca completed 
his course at the University. Whether, for the moment, we 
may not be considered as actually lording it over those 
Baratarias with the viceroyalty of which Hope in\ ests us, 
and whether we are ever so warmly housed as in our Span- 
ish castles, would afford matter of argument. Enough that 
I found that signboard to be no other than a bait to the 
trap of a decayed grocer. Nevertheless, I bought a pound 
of dates (getting short weight by reason of immense flights 
of harpy flies who pursued and lighted upon their prey even 
in the very scales), which purchase I made, not only with 
an eye to the little ones at home, but also as a figurative re- 
proof of that too frequent habit of my mind, which, forget- 
ting the due order of chronology, will often persuade me 
that the happy sceptre of Saturn is stretched over this 
Astraea-forsaken nineteenth century. 

Having glanced at the ledger of Glory under the title 
Sawin, B., let us extend our investigations, and discover if 
that instructive volume does not contain some charges 
more personally interesting to ourselves. I think we should 
be more economical of our resources, did we thoroughly 
appreciate the fact, that, whenever Brother Jonathan seems 
to be thrusting his hand into his own pocket, he is, in fact, 
picking ours. I confess that the late muck which the coun- 
try has been running has materially changed my views as 
to the best method of raising revenue. If, by means of di- 
rect taxation, the bills for every extraordinary outlay were 



148 THE BTGLOW PAPERS. 

brought under our immediate eye, so that, like thrifty 
housekeepers, we could see where and how fast the money 
was going, we should be less likely to commit extravagances. 
At present, these things are managed in such a hugger- 
mugger way, that we know not what we pay for ; the poor 
man is charged as much as the rich ; and, while we are 
saving and scrimping at the spigot, the government is draw- 
ing off at the bung. If we could know that a part of the 
money we expend for tea and cofifee goes to buy powder 
and balls, and that it is Mexican blood which makes the 
clothes on our backs more costly, it would set some of us 
athinking. During the present fall, I have often pictured 
to myself a government official entering my study and hand- 
ing me the following bill : — 

Washington, Sept. 30, 1848. 
Rev. Homer Wilbur to "ClnClC Samuel, Dr. 

To his share of work done in Mexico on partnership 
account, sundry jobs, as below. 

•• killing, maiming, and wounding about 5,000 Mex- 
icans, ........$ 2.00 

" slaughtering one woman carrying water to 

wounded, . . . . . • . .10 

" extra work on two different Sabbaths (one bom- 
bardment and one assault) whereby the Mex- 
icans were prevented from defiling themselves 
with the idolatries of high mass, . . . 3.50 

" throwing an especially fortunate and Protestant 
bombshell into the Cathedral at Vera Cruz, 
whereby several female Papists were slain at 
the altar, . . . . . . . .50 

•' his proportion of cash paid for conquered terri- 
tory, • . .1.75 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 149 

his proportion do for conquering terri- 
tory, 1.50 

manuring do. with new superior compost called 

" American Citizen," ..... .50 

extending the area of freedom and Protestantism, .01 

glory, 01 



^9.87 



Immediate payment is requested. 



N. B. Thankful for former favors, U. S. requests a con- 
tinuance of patronage. Orders executed with neatness and 
despatch. Terms as low as those of any other contractor 
for the same kind and style of work. 

I can fancy the official answering my look of horror with, 
— " Yes, Sir, it looks like a high charge, Sir ; but in these 
days slaughtering is slaughtering." Verily, I would that 
every one understood that it was ; for it goes about obtain- 
ing money under the false pretence of being glory. For 
me, I have an imagination which plays me uncomfortable 
tricks. It happens to me sometimes to see a slaughterer on 
his way home from his day's work, and forthwith my imag- 
ination puts a cocked-hat upon his head and epaulettes 
upon his shoulders, and sets him up as a candidate for the 
Presidency. So, also, on a recent public occasion, as the 
place assigned to the "Reverend Clergy " is just behind 
that of " Officers of the Army and Navy " in processions, 
it was my fortune to be seated at the dinner-table over 
against one of these respectable persons. He was arrayed 
as (out of his own profession) only kings, court-officers, and 
footmen are in Europe, and Indians in America. Now 
what does my over-officious imagination but set to work 



150 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

upon him, strip him of his gay livery, and present him to 
me coatless, his trowsers thrust into the tops of a pair of 
boots thick with clotted blood, and a basket on his arm out 
of which lolled a gore-smeared axe, thereby destroying my 
relish for the temporal mercies upon tiie board before me?— 
H. W.] 



No. IX. 

A THIRD LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, Esq. 

[Upon the following letter slender comment will be need- 
ful. In what river Selemnus has Mr. Sawin bathed, that he 
has become so swiftly oblivious of his former loves ? From 
an ardent and (as befits a soldier) confident wooer of that 
coy bride, the popular favor, we see hmi subside of a sud- 
den into the (I trust not jilted) Cincii;natus, returning to his 
plough with a goodly-sized branch of willow in his hand ; 
figuratively returning, however, to a figurative plough,_and 
from no profound affection for that honored implement of 
husbandry, (for which, indeed, Mr. Sawin never displayed 
any decided predilection,) but in order to be gracefully sum- 
moned therefrom to more congenial labors. It would seem 
that the character of the ancient Dictator had become pait 
of the recognized stock of our modern political comedy, 
though, as our term of office extends to a quadrennial length, 
the parallel is not so minutely exact as could be desired. It is 
sufficiently so, however, for purposes of scenic representa- 
tion. An humble cottage (if built of logs, the better) forms 
the Arcadian background of the stage. This rustic para- 
dise is labelled Ashland, Jaalam, North Bend, Marshficld, 
Kinderhook, or Baton Rouge, as occasion demands. Be- 
fore the door stands a something with one handle (the other 
painted in proper perspective), which represents, in happy 
ideal vagueness, the plough. To this the defeated candi- 

(151) 



152 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

date rushes with dehrious joy, welcomed as a father by ap- 
propriate groups of liappy laborers, or fiom it the successful 
one is torn witii difficulty, sustained alone by a noble sense 
of public duty. Only I have observed, that, if the scene be 
laid at Baton Rouge or Ashland, the labors are kept care- 
fully in the background, and are heard to shout from be- 
hind the scenes in a singular tone resembling ululation, and 
accompanied by a sound not unlike vigorous clapping. 
This, however, may be artistically in keeping ^^ith the 
habits of the rustic population of those localities. The pre- 
cise connection between agricultural pursuits and statesman- 
ship I have not been able, after diligent inquiry, to discover. 
But, that my investigations may not be barren of all fruit, I 
will mention one curious statistical fact, which I consider 
thoroughly established, namely, that no real farmer ever at- 
tains practically beyond a seat in General Court, however 
theoretically qualified for more exalted station. 

It is probable that some other prospect has been opened 
to Mr. Sawin, and that he has not made this great sacrifice 
without some definite understanding in regard to a seat in the 
cabinet or a foreign mission. It may be supposed that we 
of Jaalam were not untouched by a feeling of villatic pride 
in beholding our townsman occupying so large a space in 
the public eye. And to me, deeply revolving the qualifica- 
tions necessary to a candidate in these frugal times, those of 
Mr. S. seemed peculiarly adapted to a successful campaign. 
The loss of a leg, an arm, an eye, and four fingers, reduced 
him so nearly to the condition of a. vox et prcrte7-ea tiihil, 
that 1 could think of nothing but the loss of his head by 
which his chance could have been bettered. But since he 
has chosen to balk our suffrages, we must content ourselves 
with what we can get, remembering lactucas non esse dandas, 
ditin cardiii sitfficiaiii. — H. W.J 



THR BIGLOW PAPERS. 153 

I SPOSE you recollect thet I explained my gennle views 
In the last billet thet I writ, 'way down frum Veery 

Cruze, 
Jest arter I 'd a kind o' ben spontanously sot up 
To run unanimously fer the Presidential cup ; 
O' course it worn't no wish o' mine, 't wuz ferflely dis- 

tressin', 
But poppiler enthusiasm gut so almighty pressin' 
Thet, though like sixty all along I fumed an' fussed an' 

sorrered, 
There did n't seem no ways to stop their bringin' on me 

forrerd : 
Fact is, they udged the matter so, I could n't help ad- 

mittin' 
The Father o' his Country's shoes no feet but mine 

'ould fit in. 
Besides the savin' o' the soles fer ages to succeed, 
Seein' thet with one wannut foot, a pair 'd be more 'n I 

need ; 
An', tell ye wut, them shoes '11 want athund'rin' sight 

o' patchin', 
Ef this ere fashion is to last we 've gut into o' hatchin* 
A pair o' second Washintons fer every new election, — 
Though, fur ez number one 's consarned, I don't make 

no objection. 



154 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



% 



I wuz agoin* on to say thet wen at fust I saw 

The masses would stick to 't I wuz the Country's father- 

'n-law, 
(They would ha' hed it Father y but I told 'em 't would 

n't du, 
Coz thet wuz sutthin' of a sort they could n't split in tu, 
An' Washinton hed hed the thing laid fairly to his 

door, 
Nor dars n't say \ worn't his'n, much ez sixty year 

afore, ) 
But 't aint no matter ez to thet ; wen I wuz nomer- 

nated, 
'T worn't natur but wut I should feel consid'able elated, 
An' wile the hooraw o' the thing wuz kind o' noo an* 

fresh, 
I thought our ticket would ha' caird the country with a 

resh. 

Sence I 've come hum, though, an' looked round, I think 

I seem to find 
Strong argimunts ez thick ez fleas to make me change 

my mind ; 
It *s clear to any one whose brain ain't fur gone in a 

phthisis, 
Thet hail Columby's happy land is goin* thru a crisis, 



\ 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 155 

An' 't would n't noways du to hev the people's mind 

distracted 
By bein' all to once by sev'ral pop'lar names attackted ; 
'T would save hoU haycartloads o' fuss an' three four 

months o' jaw, 
Ef some illustrous paytriot should back out an* with- 
draw; 
So, ez I aint a crooked stick, jest like — like ole (I swow, 
I dunno ez I know his name) — I '11 go back to my 

plough. 
Now, 't aint no more 'n is proper 'n' right in sech a 

sitooation 
To hint the course you think '11 be the savin' o' the 

nation ; 
To funk right out o' p'lit'cal strife aint thought to be the 

thing, 
Without you deacon off the toon you want your folks 

should sing ; 
So I edvise the noomrous friends thet's in one boat with 

me 
To jest up killock, jam right down their helium hard a lee, 
Haul the sheets taut, an', laying out upon the Suthun 

tack, 
Make fer the safest port they can, wich, / think, is Ole 

Zack. 



156 THE BIG LOW PAPERS. 

Next thing you'll want to know, I spose, wut argimunts 

I seem 
To see thet makes me think this ere Ml be the strongest 

team ; 
Fust place, I've ben consid'ble round in barrooms an' 

saloons 
Agethriii' public sentiment, 'mongst Demmercrats and 

Coons, 

1 

An' 't aint ve'y offen thet I meet a chap but wut goes 

in 
Fer Rough an' Ready, fair an' square, hufs, taller, horns, 

an' skin ; 
I don't deny but wut, fer one, ez fur ez I could see, 
I didn't like at fust the Pheladelphy nomernee ; 
I could ha' pinted to a man thet wuz, I guess, a peg 
Higher than him, — a soger, tu, an' with a wooden leg ; 
But every day with more an' more o' Taylor zeal I 'ra 

burnin', 
Seein' wich way the tide thet sets to office is aturnin' ; 
Wy, into Bellers's we notched the votes down on three 

sticks, — 
*T wuz Birdofredum one, Cass aught, an' Taylor /Z£/<?«/y- 

six, 
An', bein' the on'y canderdate thet wuz upon the 

ground, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 15T 

They said 't wuz no more 'n right thet I should pay thC' 

drinks all round ; 
Ef I'd expected sech a trick, I would n't ha' cut my 

foot 

By goin' an' votin' fer myself like a consumed coot; 

It did n't make no diff'rence, though; I wish I may be- 

cust, 
Ef Bellers wuz n't slim enough to say he would n't 

trust ! 

Another pint thet influences the minds o' sober jedges 
Is thet the Gin'ral hez n't gut tied hand an' foot witb 

pledges ; 
He hez n't told ye wut he is, an' so there aint nO' 

knowin' 
But wut he may turn out to be the best there is agoin'; 
This, at the on'y spot thet pinched, the shoe directly 

eases, 
Coz every one is free to 'xpect percisely wut he 

pleases : 
I want free-trade; you don't; the Gin'ral is n't bound 

to neither ; — 

I vote my way ; you, yourn ; an' both air sooted to a T' 
there. 

Ole Rough an' Ready, tu, 's a Wig, but without bein** 

ultry 



158 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



(He's like a holsome hayinday, thet 's warm, but is n 

sultry) ; 
He *s jest wut I should call myself, a kin' o' scratchy ez 

*t ware, 
Thet aint exacly all a wig nor wholly your own hair ; 
I've ben a Wig three weeks myself, jest o' this mod'rate sort, 
An' don't find them an' Demmercrats so different ez I 

thought; 
They both act pooty much alike, an' push an' scrouge an' 

cus ; 
They 're like two pickpockets in league for Uncle Sam- 
well's pus ; 
Each takes a side, an' then they squeeze the old man in 

between 'em, 
Turn all his pockets wrong side out an' quick ez light- 

nin' clean 'em ; 
To nary one on em I 'd trust a secon* -handed rail 
No furder off 'an I could sling a bullock by the tail. 
Webster sot matters right in thet air Mashfiel' speech o' 

his'n ; — 
*' Taylor," sez he, **aint nary ways the one thet I 'd a 

chizzen. 
Nor he aint fittin' fer the place, an' like ez not he aint 
No more 'n a tough ole buUethead, an' no gret of a 

saint ; 



^ 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 159 

But then," sez he, **obsarve my pint, he's jest ez good 

to vote fer 
Ez though the greasin' on him vvorn't a thing to hire 

Choate fer; 
Aint it ez easy done to drop a ballot in a box 
Fer one ez 't is fer t' other, fer the bulldog ez the fox? '* 
It takes a mind like Dannel's, fact, ez big ez all ou* 

doors. 
To find out thet it looks like rain arter it fairly pours ; 
I 'gree with him, it aint so dreffle troublesome to vote 
Fer Taylor arter all, — it 's jest to go an' change your 

coat ; 
Wen he 's once greased, you Ml swaller him an' never 

know on 't, source. 
Unless he scratches, goin' down, with them air Gin'ral's 

spurs. 
I 've ben a votin* Demmercrat, ez reg'lar ez a clock, 
But don't find goin' Taylor gives my narves no gret 'f a 

shock ; 
Truth is, the cutest leadin' Wigs, ever sence fust they 

found 
Wich side the bread gut butterea on, hev kep' a edgin* 

round ; 
They kin' o' slipt the planks frum out th' ole platform 

one by one , 



160 THE BIGLOW TAPERS. 

An' made it gradooally noo, 'fore folks know'd wut wuz 

done, 
Till, fur 'z I know, there aint an inch thet I could lay 

my han' on, 
But I, or any Demmercrat, feels com f table to stan' on. 
An' ole Wig doctrines act'lly look, their occ'pants bein' 

gone. 
Lonesome ez staddles on a mash without no hayricks on. 

I spose it 's time now I shall give my thoughts upon the 
plan, 

Thet chipped the shell at Buffalo, o' settin' up ole Van. 

I used to vote fer Martin, but, I swan, I 'm clean dis- 
gusted, — 

He aint the man thet I can say is fittin' to be trusted ; 

He aint half antislav'ry 'nough, nor I aint sure, ez some 
be, 

He 'd go in fer abolishin' the Deestrick o' Columby ; 

An', now I come to recollect, it kin' o' makes me sick 'z 

A horse, to think o* wut he wuz in eighteen thirty-six. > 

An' then, another thing; — I guess, though mebby I am 
wrong. 

This Buff'lo plaster aint agoin' to dror almighty strong; 

Some folks, I know, hev gut th' idee thet No'thun dough 
'11 rise, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 161 

Though, 'fore I see it riz an' baked, I would n't trust 

my eyes ; 
'T will take more emptins, a long chalk, than this noo 

party 's gut, 
To give sech heavy cakes ez them a start, I tell ye wut. 
But even ef they caird the day, there would n't be no 

endurin' 
To stand upon a platform with sech critters ez Van 

Buren ; — 
An' his son John, tu, I can't think how thet air chap 

should dare 
To speak ez he doos ; wy, they say he used to cuss an* 

swear ! 
I spose he never read the hymn thet tells how down the 

stairs 
A feller with long legs wuz throwed thet would n't say 

his prayers. 

This brings me to another pint : the leaders o' the party 
Aint jest sech men ez I can act along with free an* 

hearty ; 
They aint not quite respectable, an' wen a feller's mor- 

rils 
Don't toe the straightest kin' o' mark, wy, him an* me 

jest quarrils. 

11 



162 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

I went to a free soil meetin' once, an' wut d' ye think I 

see? 
A feller wuz aspoutin' there thet act'lly come to me, 
About two year ago last spring, ez nigh ez I can jedge. 
An' axed me ef I didn't want to sign the Temprunce 

pledge ! 
He 's one o' them thet goes about an' sez you hed n't 

oucrh' to 
Drink nothin', mornin', noon, or night, stronger 'an 
' Taunton water. 

There 's one rule I *ve ben guided by, in settlin* how to 

vote, oilers, — 
I take the side thet ts «*/ took by them consarned tee 

totallers. 



4 



Ez fer the niggers, I 've ben South, an' thet hez changed 

my mind ; 
A lazier, more ungrateful set you could n't nowers find. 
You know I mentioned in my last thet I should buy a 

nigger, 
Ef I could make a purchase at a pooty mod'rate fig- 



cpr ■ 



I 

So, ez there 's nothin' in the world I 'm fonder of 'an 

gunnin', 
1 closed a bargin finally to take a feller runnin'. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 163 

I shou'dered qiieen's-arm an* stumped out, an' wen I 

come t' th' swamp, 
'T worn't very long afore I gut upon the nest o' Pomp ; 
I come acrost a kin' o' hut, an', playin' round the door, 
Some little woolly -headed cubs, ez many 'z six or more. 
At fust I thought o' firin', but think twice is safest oilers ; 
There aint, thinks I, not one on em' but 's wuth his 

twenty dollars. 
Or would be, ef I hed 'em back into a Christian land, — 
How temptin' all on 'em would look upon an auction- 
stand ! 
(Not but wut / hate Slavery in th' abstract, stem to 

starn, — 
I leave it ware our fathers did, a privit State consarn.) 
Soon 'z they see me, they yelled an' run, but Pomp wuz 

out ahoein' 
A leetle patch o' corn he hed, or else there aint no 

knowin' 
He would n't ha' took a pop at me; but I hed gut the 

start. 
An' wen he looked, I vow he groaned ez though he 'd 

broke his heart ; 
He done it like a wite man, tu, ez nat'ral ez a pictur. 
The imp'dunt, pis'nous hypocrite ! wus 'an a boy con- 

strictur. 



164 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

** You can't gum mey I tell ye now, an' so you need n't 
try, 

I 'xpect my eye-teeth every mail, so jest shet up," sez I. 

** Don't go to actin' ugly now, or else I '11 jest let strip, 

You 'd best draw kindly, seein' 'z how I 've gut ye on 
the hip; 

Besides, you darned ole fool, it aint no gret of a dis- 
aster 

To be benev'lently druv back to a contented master. 

Ware you hed Christian priv'ledges you don't seem quite ^ 
aware of. 

Or you 'd ha' never run away from bein' weU took care 
of; 

Ez fer kin' treatment, wy, he wuz so fond on ye, he said 
He 'd give a fifty spot right out, to git ye, 'live or dead ; 
Wite folks aint sot by half ez much ; 'member I run 

away, 
Wen I wuz bound to Cap'n Jakes, to Mattysqumscot bay ; 
Don' know him, likely ? Spose not ; wal, the mean ole 

codger went 
An' offered — wut reward, think? Wal, it worn't no 

less 'n a cent." 

Wal, I jest gut 'em into line, an druv em on afore me, 
The pis'nous brutes, I 'd no idee o' the ill-will they bote 
me; 



THE BIGLOW PAPEPS. 165 

We walked till som'ers about noon, an' then it grew so 

hot 
I thought it best to camp awile, so I chose out a spot 
Jest under a magnoly tree, an' there right down I sot; 
Then 1 unstrapped my wooden leg, coz it begun to 

chafe, 
An' laid it down jest by my side, supposin' all wuz safe; 
I made my darkies all set down around me in a ring, 
An' sot an' kin' o' ciphered up how much the lot would 

bring ; 
But, wile I drinked the peaceful cup of a pure heart an* 

mind, 
(Mixed with some wiskey, now an' then,) Pomp he 

snaked up behind. 
An', creepin' grad'lly close tu, ez quiet ez a mink. 
Jest grabbed my leg, and then pulled foot, quicker *an 

you could wink. 
An', come to look, they each on 'em hed gut behin' a 

tree, 
An' Pomp poked out the leg a piece, jest so ez I could 

see, 
An' yelled to me to throw away my pistils an' my gun, 
Or else thet they 'd cair off the leg an' fairly cut the run. 
I vow I did n't b'lieve there wuz a decent alligatur 
Thet hed a heart so destitoot o' common human natur ; 



166 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



However, ez there worn't no help, I finally give in 
An' heft my arms away to git my leg safe back agin. 
Pomp gethered all the weapins up, an' then he come an* 

grinned, 
He showed his ivory some, I guess, an' sez, ''You 're 

fairly pinned ; 
Jest buckle on your leg agin, an' git right up an' come, 
'T wun't du fer fammerly men like me to be so long 

from hum." 
At fust I put my foot right down an' swore I would n't 

budge. 
**Jest ez you choose," sez he, quite cool, ''either be 

shot or trudge." 
So this black-hearted monster took an' act'lly druv me 

back 
Along the very feetmarks o' my happy mornin' track. 
An' kep' me pris'ner 'bout six months, an' worked me, 

tu, like sin, 
Till I hed gut his corn an' his Carliny taters in ; 
He made me larn him readin', tu, (although the crittur saw 
How much it hut my morril sense to act agin the law,) 
So 'st he could read a Bible he 'd gut; an' axed ef I 

could pint 
The North Star out ; but there I put his nose some out 

o' jint. 



I 



THE BTGLOW PAPERS. 167 

Fer I weeled roun* about sou' west, an', lookin' up a bit, 
Picked out a middlin' shiny one an' tole him thet wuz it. 
Fin'lly, he took me to the door, an', givin' me a kick, 
Sez, — " Ef you know wut 's best fer ye, be off, now, 

double-quick ; 
The winter-time 'sacomin' on, an', though I gut ye cheap. 
You 're so darned lazy, I don't think you 're hardly 

wuth your keep ; 
Besides, the childrin's growin' up, an' you aint jest the 

model 
I 'd like to hev 'em immertate, an' so you 'd better 

toddle! ' 

Now is there any thin' on airth '11 ever prove to me 
Thet renegader slaves like him air fit fer bein' free? 
D' you think they '11 suck me in to jine the Buft'lo chaps, 

an' them 
Rank infidels thet go agin the Scriptur'l cus o' Shem ? 
Nut by a jugfull ! sooner 'n thet, I 'd go thru fire an' 

water ; 
AVen I hev once made upmymind, a meet'nhusaint sotter; 
No, not though all the crows thet flies to pick my bones 

wuz cawin' — 
I guess we 're in a Christian land, — 
Yourn, 

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. 



168 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

[Here, patient reader, we take leave of each other, I trust 
with some mutual satisfaction. I say patient, for I love not 
that kind which skims dippingly over the surface of the page, 
as swallows over a pool before rain. By such no pearls 
shall be gathered. But if no pearls there be (as, indeed, the 
world is not without example of books wherefrom the long- 
est-winded diver shall bring up no more than his proper 
handful of mud), yet let us hope that an oyster or two may 
reward adequate perseverance. If neither pearls nor oysters, 
yet is patience itself a gem worth diving deeply for. 

It may seem to some that too much space has been usurped 
by my own private lucubrations, and some may be fain to 
bring against me that old jest of him who preached all his 
hearers out of the meeting-house save only the sexton, who, 
remaining for yet a little space, from a sense of official duty, 
at last gave out also, and, presenting the keys, humbly re- 
quested our preacher to lock the doors, when he should have 
wholly relieved himself of his testimony. I confess to a 
satisfaction in the self act of preaching, nor do I esteem a 
discourse to be wholly thrown away even upon a sleeping 
or unintelligent auditory, I cannot easily believe that the 
Gospel of Saint John, which Jacques Cartier ordered to be 
read in the Latin tongue to the Canadian savages, upon his 
first meeting with them, fell altogether upon stony ground. 
For the earnestness of the preacher is a sermon appreciable 
by dullest intellects and most alien ears. In this wise did 
Episcopius convert many to his opinions, who yet under- 
stood not the language in which he discoursed. The chief 
thing is, that the messenger believe that he has an authentic 
message to deliver. For counterfeit messengers that mode 
of treatment which Father John de Piano Carpini relates to 
have prevailed among the Tartars would seem effectual, and, 
perhaps, deserved enough. For my own part, I may lay 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 169 

claim to so much of the spirit of martyrdom as would have 
led me to go into banishment with those clergymen whom 
Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal drave out of his kingdom for 
refusing to shorten their pulpit eloquence. It is possible, 
that, having been invited into my brother Biglow's desk, I 
may have been too little scrupulous in using it for the vent- 
ing of my own pecuhar doctrines to a congregation drawn 
together in the expectation and with the desire of hearing 
him. 

I am not wholly unconscious of a peculiarity of mental 
organization which impels me, like the railroad-engine with 
its train of cars, to run backward for a short distance in 
order to obtain a fairer start. I may compare myself to one 
fishing from the rocks when the sea runs high, who, misinter- 
preting the suction of the undertow for the biting of some 
larger fish, jerks suddenly, and finds that he has caught bot" 
torn, hauling in upon the end of his line a trail of various 
algce, among which, nevertheless, the naturalist may haply 
find somewhat to repay the disappointment of the angler. 
Yet have I conscientiously endeavored to adapt myself to 
the impatient temper of the age, daily degenerating more 
and more from the high standard of our pristine New 
England. To the catalogue of lost arts I would mournfully 
add also that of listening to two-hour sermons. Surely we 
have been abridged into a race of pigmies. For, truly, in 
those of the old discourses yet subsisting to us in print, the 
endless spinal column of divisions and subdivisions can be 
likened to nothing so exactly as to the vertebrce of the 
saurians, whence the theorist may conjecture a race of Ana- 
kim proportionate to the withstanding of these other 
monsters. I say Anakim rather than Nephelim, because 
there seem reasons for supposing that the race of those 
whose heads (though no giants) are constantly enveloped 



170 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

in clouds (which that name imports) will never become ex- 
tinct. The attempt to vanquish the innumerable heads of 
one of those aforementioned discourses may supply us with 
a plausible interpretation of the second labor of Hercules, 
and his successful experiment with fire affords us a useful 
precedent. 

But while I lament the degeneracy of the age in this re- 
gard, I cannot refuse to succumb to its influence. Looking 
out through my study-window, I see Mr. Biglow at a dis- 
tance busy in gathering his Baldwins, of which, to judge by 
the number of barrels lying about under the trees, his crop, 
is more abundant than my own, — by which sight I am ad-l 
monished to turn to those orchards of the mind wherein my* 
labors may be more prospered, and apply myself diligently 
to the preparation of my next Sabbath's discourse. — H. W.] 



GLOSSARY. 



A. 

Act'Uy, actually. 
Air, are. 
Airth, earth. 
Airy, area. 
Aree, area. 
Arter, after. 
Ax, ask. 

B. 

Beller, hellow. 

Bellowses, lungs. "^ 

Ben, heen. 
Bile, boil. 

Bimeby, by and by. 
Blurt out, to speak bluntly. 
Bust, burst. 

Buster, a roisting blade; used 
also as a general superlative. 



C. 

Caird, carried. 

Cairn, carrying. 

Caleb, a turncoat. 

Cal'late, calculate. 

Cass, a person icitli two lives. 

Close, clothes. 

Cockerel, a young cock. 

Cocktail, a kind of drink ; also, 

an ornament peculiar to sol' 

diers. 



Convention, a place where pea* 
pie are imposed on ; a juggler^s 
show. 

Coons, a cant term for a now de- 
funct party; derived, per- 
haps, from the fact of their 
being commonly up a tree. 

Cornwallis, a sort of muster in 
masquerade; supposed to 
have had its origin soon after 
the Revolution, and to com- 
memorate the surrender of 
Lord Cornwallis. It took 
the place of the old Guy 
Fawkes procession. 

Crooked stick, a perverse, fro* 
ivard person. 

Cunnle, a colonel. 

Cus, a curse; also, a pitiful feU 

low. 



D. 

Darsn't used indiscriminately, 
either in singular or plural 
number, for dare not, dares 
not, and dared not. 

Deacon off, to give the cue to ; 
derived from a custom, once 
universal, but now extinct, 
in our New England Con- 
gregational churches. An 
important part of the office 
of deacon was to read aloud 



(\U) 



172 



GLOSSARY. 



the hymns given out by the 
minister, one line at a time, 
the congregation singing 
each line as soon as read. 

Demmercrat, leadin', one in 
favor of extending slavery ; a 
free-trade lecturer maintained 
in the customhouse, 

Desput, desperate. 

Doos, does. 

Doughface, o contented lick- 
spittle ; a common variety of 
Northern politician. 

Dror, draw. 

Dn, do. 

Dunno, dno, do not or does not 
knoiv. 

Dut, dirt. 



E. 

Eend, end. 

Ef, if 

Em p tins, yeaat. 

Env'y, envoy. 

Everylasting, an intensive, 
without reference to dur- 
ation. 

Ev'y, every, 

Ez, as. 



F. 

Fer, for. 

Ferfle, ferful, fearful ; also an 
intensive. 

Fin', find. 

Fish-skin, used in New En- 
gland to clarify coflee. 

Fix, a difflcidty, a nonplus. 

Foller, folly, to follow. 



Forrerd, forward. 

Frum, from, 

Fur, far. 

Furdier, farther. 

Furrer, furrow. Metaphori- 
cally, to draw a straight fur- 
row is to live uprightly or 
decorously. 

Fust, first 

G. 

Gin, gave. 

Git, get. 

Gret, great. 

Grit, spirit, energy , pluck. 

Grout, to sidk. 

Grouty, crabbed, surly. 

Gum, to impose on. 

Gump, a foolish fellow, a duU 

lard. 

Gut, got. 



H. 

Hed, had. 

Heern, heard. 

Helium, helm. 

Hendy, handy. 

Het, heated. 

Hev, have, 

Hez, has. 

Holl, whole. 

Holt, hold. 

Huf, hoof. 

Hull, tvhole. 

Hum, home. 

Humbug, General Taylor''s antU 

slavery. 
Hut, hurt. 



GLOSSARY. 



178 



I. 



Id no, / do not know. 

In 'my, enemy. 

Insiues, ensigns; used to de- 
signate both the officer who 
carries the standard, and the 
standard itself. 

Inter, intu, into. 



J. 

Jedge, judge. 
Jest, just. 
Jine, join. 
Jint, joint. 

Junk, a fragment of any solid 
substance. 



K. 

Keer, care. 
Kep, Icept. 

Killock, a small anchor. 
Kin', kin' o', kinder, kind, 
kind of. 



L. 

■) 

Lawth, loath. 

Let daylight into, to shoot. 

Let on, to hint, to confess, to 
own. 

Lick, to heat, to overcome. 

Light?, the bowels. 

Lily-pads, leaves of the water- 
lily. 

Long-sweetening, molasses. 



M. 

Mash, marsh. 

Mean, stingy, ill-natured. 

Min', mind. 

N. 

Nimepunce, ninepence, twetve 

and a half cents. 
Nowers, nowhere. 

O. 

Oflfen, often. 

Ole, old. 

Oilers, olluz, always. 

On, of; used before it or them^ 
or at the end of a sentence, 
as, on H, on 'em, nut ez ever 1 
heerd on. 

On'y, only. 

Ossifer, officer (seldom heard). 

P. 

Peaked, pointed. 

Peek, to peep. 

Pickerel, the pike, a fish. 

Pint, point. 

Pocket full of rocks, plenty of 

money. 
Pooty, pretty. 
Pop'ler, conceited, popular. 
Pus, purse. 
Put oat, troubled, vexed. 

Q. 

Quarter, a quarter-dolla/r. 
Queen's arm, a musket. 



174 



GLOSSARY. 



K. 

Resh, rush. 

Revelee, the reveille. 

Rile, to trouble. 

Kiled, angry ; disturbed, as the 
seciiuieiiL lu iiu.y liquid. 

Riz, risen. 

Row, a loug row to hoe, a diffi- 
cult task. 

Rugged, robust. 



S. 



Sarse, abuse, impertinence, 
< Sartin, certain. 

Saxou, sacristan, sexton. 

Scaliest, ivorst. 

Scringe, cringe. 

Scrouge, to crowd. 

Sech, such. 

Set by, valued. 

Shakes, great, of considerable 
consequence. 

Shappoes, chapeaux, cocked-hats. 

Sheer, share, 

Shet, shut. 

Shut, shirt. 

Skeered, scared. 

Skeeter, mosquito. 

Skooting, running, or moving 
swiftly. 

Siarterin', slaughtering. 

Slim, contemptible. 

Suaked, crawled like a snake; 
hut to snake any one out is to 
track him to his hiding- 
place ; to snake a thing out is 
to snatch it out. 

SoflSes, sofas. 

Sogerin', soldiering; a barbar- 
ous amusement common 



among men in the savage 
state. 

Som'ers, someivhere. 

So 'st, so as that. 

Sot, set, obstinate, resolute. 

Spiles, spoils ; objects of political 
ambition. 

Spry, active. 

Staddles. stout stakes driven into 
the salt mars?i€s, on which the 
hayricks are set, and thus 
raised out of the reach of 
high tides. 

Streaked, uncomfortable, discom- 
fited. 

Suckle, circle. 

Sutthin', something. 

Suttiu, certain. 



Take on, to sojtow. 

Talents, talons. 

Taters, potatoes. 

Tell, till. 

Tetch, touch. 

Tetch tu, to be able; used al- 
ways after a uegative in this 
sense. 

Tollable, tolerable. 

Toot, used derisively for j9?«2/" 
ing on any wind instrument. 

Thru, through' 

Thundering, a euphemism com- 
mon in New England, for 
the profane English expres- 
sion devilish. Perhaps de- 
rived from the belief, com- 
mon formerly, that thunder 
was caused by the Prince of 
the Air, for some of whose 
accomplishments consult 
Cotton Mather. 



GLOSSARY. 



175 



Tu, to, too ; commonly has this 
sound when used emphatic- 
ally, or at the end of a sen- 
tence. At other times it has 
the sound of t in tough, as 
Ware ye goiii' tu ? Gobi' ta 
Boston. 



U. 



Ugly, ill-tempered, intractable. 
Uncle Sam, United States; the 

largest boaster of liberty 

and owner of slaves. 
Uurizzest, applied to dough or 

bread ; heavy, most unrisen, 

or most incapable of rising. 



seldom) very much broad- 
ened. 

Wannut, walnut (hicl'ory). 

Ware, ivhere. 

Ware, were. 

Whopper, an uncommonly large 
lie; as, that General Taylor 
is in favor of the Wilmot 
Proviso. 

Wig, Whig; a party now dis- 
solved. 

Wunt, icill not. 

Wus, worse. 

Wut, tvhat. 

Wuth, worth; as, Antislavery 
perfessions fore ^lection aint 
wuth a Bungtown copper. 

Wuz, waSj sometimes were. 



V. 

V spot, a five-dollar bill. 
Vally, value. 



Y. 

Yaller, yellow. 
Teller, yellow. 
Yellers, a disease of peach-trees. 



W. 

Wake snakes, to get into trouble. 

Wal, well; spoken with great 
deliberation, and sometimes 
with the a very much flat- 
tened, sometimes (but more 



Z. 

Zach, 01 e, a second Washington, 
an antislavery slaveholder, a 
humane buyer and seller of 
men and women, a Christian 
hero generally. 



INDEX. 



A. 

A. B., information wanted con- 
cerning, 120. 

Adam, eldest son of, respected, 
52. 

^neasgoes to hell, 145. 

Mollis, a seller of money, as is 
supposed by some, 146. 

jJEschylus, a saying of, 93, note. 

Alligator, a decent one conjec- 
tured to be, in some sort, 
humane, 165. 

Alphonso the Sixth of Portu- 
gal, tyrannical act of, 169. 

Ambrose, Saint, excellent (but 
rationalistic) sentiment of, 
77. 

*' American Citizen," new com- 
post so called, 149. 

American Eagle, a source of 
inspiration, 87 — hitherto 
wrongly classed, 94 — long 
bill of, 94. 

Amos, cited, 76. 

Anakim, that they formerly 
existed, shown, 169. 

Angels, providentially speak 
French, 65 — conjectured to 
be skilled in all tongues, ib. 

Anglo-Saxondom, its idea, 
what, 62. 

Anglo-Saxon mask, 63. 

Anglo-Saxon race, 58. 

12 



Anglo-Saxon verse, by whom 
carried to perfection, 53. 

An ton ins, a speech of, 82 — by 
whom best reported, ib. 

Apocalypse, beast in, magnetic 
to theologians, 127. 

Apollo, confessed mortal by hi» 
own oracle, 127. 

Apollyon, his tragedies pop- 
ular, 116. 

Appian, an Alexandrian, not 
equal to Shakspeare as an* 
orator, 82. 

Ararat, ignorance of foreign) 
tongues is an, 95. 

Arcadian background, 151 

Aristophanes, 76. 

Arms, profession of, once es- 
teemed especially that of 
gentlemen, 52. 

Arnold, 84. 

Ashland, 151. 

Astor, Jaeot), a rich man, 135. 

Astrsea, nineteenth century for- 
saken by, 147. 

Athenians, nncient, an insti- 
tution ^►t, 83. 

Atherton, Senator, envies the 
loon, 1U3. 

Austin, St., profane wish of^ 
85, note. 

Aye-Aye, llie, an African ani- 
mal, America supposed to be 
settled by, 67. 

(HT) 



178 



INDEX, 



B. 

Babel, probably tbe first Con- 
gress, 95 — a jiubble-iuill, ib. 

Baby, a low priced one, 143. 

Bagowind, Hon. Mr., whether 
to be damned, 106. 

Baldwin apples, 170. 

Baratarias, real or imaginary, 
which most pleasant, 147. 

Barnum, a great natural curi- 
osity recommended to, 91. 

Barrels, an inference from see- 
ing, 170. 

Baton Rouge, 151 — strange pe- 
culiarities of laborers at, 152. 

Baxter, R., a saying of, 77. 

Bay, Mattysqumscot, 164. 

Bay State, singular effect pro- 
duced on military oflflcers by 
leaving it, 63. 

Beast in Apocalypse, a load- 
stone for whom, 127. 

Beelzebub, his rigadoon, 104. 

Behmen, his letters not letters, 
120. 

Bellers, a salooon-keeper, 156 
— inhumanly refuses credit 
t» a presidential candidate, 
157. 

Biglow, Ezekiel, his letter to 
Hon. J. T. Buckingham, 1 
— never heard of any one 
named Mundishes, 44 — near- 
ly fourscore years old, ih. — 
his aunt Keziah, a notable 
saying of, ih. 

Biglow, Hosea, excited by 
composition, 44 — a poem by, 
45, 110 — his opinion of war,46 
— wanted at home by Nancy, 
49. — recommends a forcible 
enlistment of warlike edit- 



ors, ib. — would not wonder, 
if generally agreed with, 50 — 
versifies letter of Mr. Sawin, 
53— a letter from, 54, 100— 
his opinion of Mr. Sawin, 55 
— does not deny fun atCoru- 
wallis, 56, note — his idea of 
militia glory, 59, note — a pun 
of, 60, note — is uncertain in 
regard to people of Boston, 
ib. — had never heard of Mr. 
John P. Robinson, 69 — ali 
quid siifflaminandus, 70 — his 
poems attributed to a Mr. 
Lowell, 75 — is unskilled in 
Latin, 75 — his poetrj^ ma- 
ligned by some, ih. — his dis- 
interestedness, ih. — his deep 
share in commonweal, ib. — 
his claim to the presidency, 
76 — his mowing, ib. — re- 
sents being called Whig, 41 
— opposed to tariff, ih. — ob- 
stinate, ih. — infected with 
peculiar notions, ih. — reports 
a speech, 80 — emulates his- 
torians of antiquity, ib. — his 
character sketched from a 
hostile point of view, 94 — a 
request of his complied with, 
106 — appointed at a public 
meeting in Jaalam, 121 — con- 
fesses ignorance, in one min- 
ute particular, of propriety, 
ib. — his opinion of cocked 
hats, ?6.— letter to, 121— called 
"Dear Sir," by a general, 
ih. — probably receives same 
compliment from two hun- 
dred and nine. 121 — picks 
his apples, 170 — his crop 
of Baldwins conjecturally 
large, ib. 



INDEX. 



179 



Billiugs, Dea. Cephas, 56. 

Birch, virtue of, in instilling 
certain of the dead lan- 
guages. 145. 

Bird of our country sings ho- 
sanna, 58. 

Blind, to get it, 142. 

Blitz pulls ribbons from his 
mouth, 58. 

Blueuose potatoes, smell of, ea- 
gerly desired, 59. 

Bobtail obtains a cardinal's 
hat, 67. 

IBolles, Mr. Secondary, author 
of prize peace essay, 57 — • 
presents sword to Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel, lb. — a fluent 
orator, ib. — found to be in 
error, 59. 

Bonaparte, N., a usurper, 127. 

Boot-trees, productive, where, 
145. 

Boston, people of, supposed ed- 
ucated, 60, note. 

Brahmins, navel-contemplat- 
imr, 118. 

Bread-trees, 144. 

Brigadier-Generals in militia, 
devotion of, 80. 

Brown, Mr., engages in an un- 
equal contest, 107. 

Browne, Sir. T., a pious and 
wise sentiment of, cited and 
commended, 53. 

Buckingham, Hon. J. T., edi- 
tor of the Boston Courier, 
letters to, 43, 53, 75, 100— 
not afraid, 54. 

Buffalo, a plan hatched there, 
160 — plaster, a prophecy in 
regard to, 160. 

Buncombe, in the other world 
supposed, 83. 



Bung, the eternal, thought to 

be loose, 49. 
Bungtown Fencibles, dinner 

of, 68. 
Butter in Irish bogs, 144. 



C. 



C, General, commended for 
parts, 71 — for ubiquity, ib. 
— for consistency, ib. — for 
fidelity, ib. — is in favor of 
war, 71 — his curious valua- 
tion of principle, ib. 

Caesar, tribute to, 112 — his veni, 
vidi, vici, censured for undue 
prolixity, 129. 

Cainites, sect of, supposed still 
extant, 52. 

Caleb, a monopoly of his de- 
nied, 57 — curious notions of, 
as to meaning of " shelter," 
61 — his definition of Anglo- 
Saxon, 62 — charges Mexi- 
cans (not with bayonets, 
but) with improprieties, ib. 

Calhoun, Hon. J. C., his cow- 
bell curfew, light of the 
nineteenth century to be ex- 
tinguished at sound of, 98 — 
cannot let go apron-string of 
the Past, 98 — his unsuccess- 
ful tilt at Spirit of the Age, 
ib. — the Sir Kay of modern 
chivalry, ib. — his anchor 
made of a crooked pin, 100 — 
mentioned, 100-105. 

Cambridge Platform, use dis- 
covered for, 66. 

Canary Islands, 145. 

Candidate, presidential, letter 



180 



INDEX. 



from, 121 — smells a rat, ih. — 
against a bank, 123 — takes a 
revolving position, ib. — opin- 
ion of pledges, ib. — is a peri- 
wig, ib. — fronts south by 
north, 125 — qualifications of, 
lessening, 129 — wooden leg 
(and head) useful to, 141. 

Cape Cod clergymen, what, 66 
-Sabbath-breakers, perhaps, 
reproved by, ib. 

Carpini, Father John de Piano, 
among the Tartars, 168. 

Cartier, Jacques, commendable 
zeal of, 168. 

Cass, General, 102 — clearness 
of his merit, 103 — limited 
popularity at *' Bellers's," 
156. 

Castles, Spanish, comfortable 
accommodations in, 147. 

Cato, letters of, so called, sus- 
pended naso adunco, 120. 

C. D., friends of, can hear of 
him, 120. 

Chalk egg, we are proud of in- 
cubation of, 119. 

Chappelow on Job, a copy of, 
lost, 109. 

Cberubusco, news of, its effects 
on English royalty, 93. 

Chesterfield no letter-writer, 
120. 

Chief Magistrate, dancing es- 
teemed sinful by, 66. 

Children naturally speak He- 
brew, 53. 

China-tree, 145. 

Chinese, whether they invent- 
ed gunpowder before the 
Christian era not considered, 
67. 

Choate hired, 159. 



Christ shuffled into Apocry- 
pha, 67 — conjectured to dis- 
approve of slaughter and 
pillage, 72 — condemns a 
certain piece of barbarism, 
107. 

Christianity, profession of, ple- 
beian, whether, 53. 

Christian soldiers, perhaps in- 
consistent, whether, 81. 

Cicero, an opinion of, disputed, 
128. 

Cilley, Ensign, author of ne- 
farious sentiment, 68. 

Cimex lectularius, 60. 

Cincinnatus, a stock character 
in modern comedy, 151. 

Civilization, progress of, an 
alias, 109 — rides upon a pow- 
der-cart, 123. 

Clergymen, their ill husban- 
dry, 108 — their place in pro- 
cessions, 150 — some, cruelly 
banished for the soundness 
of their lungs, 169. 

Cocked-hat, advantages of be- 
ing knocked into, 74. 

College of Cardinals, a strange 
one, 67. 

Colman, Dr. Benjamin, anec- 
dote of, 81. 

Colored folks, curious national 
diversion of kicking, 61. 

Colquitt, a remark of, 104 — ac- 
quainted with some princi- 
ples of aerostation, ib. 

Columbia, District of, its pecu- 
liar climatic efforts, 86 — not 
certain that Martin is for 
abolishing it, 160. 

Columbus, a Paul Pry of gen- 
ius, 118. 

Columby, 154. 



INDEX. 



181 



Complete Letter- Writer, fatal 
gift of, 126. 

Coinpostella, St. James of, 
seen, 64. 

Cougress, singular consequence 
of getting into, 86. 

Congressional debates, found 
instructive, 96. 

Constituents, useful for what, 
86. 

Constitution trampled on, 100 
— to stand upon, what, 
123. 

Convention, what, 86, 87. 

Convention, Springfield, 87. 

Coon, old, pleasure in skin- 
ning, 102. 

Coppers, cdste in picking up of, 
138. 

Copres, a monk, his excellent 
method of arguing, 96. 

Cornwallis, a, 56 — acknowl- 
edged entertaining, ih., note. 

Cotton Mather, summoned as 
witness, 65. 

Country lawyers, sent provi- 
dentially, 72. 

Country, our, its boundaries 
more exactly defined, 74 — 
right or wrong, nonsense 
about exposed, ih. 

Courier, The Boston, an unsafe 
print, 94. 

Court, tieneral, farmers some- 
times attain seats in, 152. 
j Cowper, W., his letters com- 
/ mended, 120. 

Creed, a safe kind of, 142. 

Crusade, first American, 65. 

Cuneiform script recommend- 
ed, 129. 

Curiosity distinguishes man 
from brutes, 118. 



D. 

Davis, Mr., of Mississippi, a 
remark of his, 102. 

Day and Martin, proverbially 
"on hand," 44. 

Death, rings down curtain, 116. 

Delphi, oracle of, surpassed, 
93, note — alluded to, 127. 

Destiny, her account, 92. 

Devil, the, unskilled in certain 
Indian tongues, 65. 

Dey of Tripoli, 98. 

Diaz, Bernal, has a vision, 64 
— his relationship to the 
Scarlet Woman, ih. 

Didymus, a somewhat volu- 
minous grammarian, 127. 

Dighton rock character might 
be usefully employed in some 
emergencies, 129. 

Dimitry Bruisgins, fresh sup- 
ply of, 117. 

Diogenes, his zeal for propagat- 
ing certain variety of olive, 
145. 

Dioscuri, imps of the pit, 65. 

District Attorney, contempt- 
ible conduct of one, 98. 

Ditchwater on brain, a too 
common ailing, 97. 

Doctor, the, a proverbial say* 
ing of, 64. 

Doughface, yeast-proof, 114. 

Drayton, a martyr, 98 — north 
star, culpable for aiding, 
whether, 105. 



E. 

Earth, Dame, a peep at her 
housekeeping, 99. 



182 



INDEX. 



Eating words, habit of, conven- 
ient in time of famine, 91. 

Eavesdroppers, 118. 

Editor, bis position, 108 — com- 
manding pulpit of,109 — large 
congregation of, ib. — name 
derived from wbat, 110 — 
fondness for mutton, ib. — a 
pious one, bis creed, ib. — a 
showman, 115 — in danger of 
sudden arrest, without bail, 
116. 

Editors, certain ones who crow 
like cockerels, 49. 

Egyptian darkness, phial of, 
use for, 129. 

Eldorado, Mr. Sawin sets sail 
for, 144. 

Elizabeth, Queen, mistake of 
her ambassador, 83. 

Empedocles, 118. 

Employment, regular, a good 
thing, 137. 

Epaulets, perhaps no badge of 
saintship, 72. 

Episcopius, his marvelous ora- 
tory, 168. 

Eric, king of Sweden, his cap, 
146. 

Evangelists, iron ones, 66. 

Eyelids, a divine shield against 
authors, 96. 

Ezekiel, text taken from, 108. 



F. 

Factory -girls, expected rebel- 
lion of, 103. 

Family-trees, fruit of jejune 
145. 

Faneuil Hall, a place where 
persons tap themselves for a 



species of hydrocephalus, 97 
— a bill of fare mendaciously 
advertised in, 144. 

Father of country, his shoes, 
154. 

Female Papists, cut off in 
midst of idolatry, 148. 

Fire, we all like to play with 
it, 99. 

Fish, emblematic, but disre- 
garded, where, 97. 

Flam, President, untrust- 
worthy, 87. 

Fly-leaves, providential in- 
crease of, 96. 

Foote, Mr., his taste for field- 
sports, 101. 

Fourier, a squinting toward, 
94. 

Fourth of Julys, boiling, 84. 

France, a strange dance begun 
in, 104. 

Fuller, Dr. Thomas, a wise 
saying of, 70. 

Funnel, Old, hurraing in, 57. 



G. 

Gawain, Sir, his amusements, 
100. 

Gay, S. H,, Esfpiire, editor of 
National Anir-liverv Stand- 
ard, letter to. 118. 

Getting up early, 46. 62. 

Ghosts, some, I'te-unied fidg-^- 
ety, (but see Siilliiig's Pneu- 
niatology, ) 120. 

Giants formerly stupid, 119. 

Gift of tongue.^, distressing 
case of, 96. 

Globe Theatre, cheap season- 
ticket to, 116. 



INDEX. 



183 



Glory, a perquisite of officers, 
138 — her account with B. 
Sawin, Esq., 144. 

Goatsuose, the celebrated, in- 
terview with, 129. 

Gray's letters are letters, 120. 

Great horn spoon, sworn by, 
101. 

Greek;*, ancient, whether they 
questir>ned candidates, 128. 

Green Mau, sign of, 77. 



H. 



Hara, sandwich, an orthodox 
(but peculiar) one, 106. 

Hamlets, machine for making, 
131. 

Hammon, 93, 7iote, 127. 

Haunegan, Mr., something said 
by, 85. 

Harrison, General, how pre- 
served, 126. 

Hat-trees, in full bearing, 145. 

Hawkins, Sir John, stout, 
something he saw, 144. 

Henry the Fourth of England, 
a Parliament of, how named, 
83. 

Hercules, his second labor 
probably what, 170. 

Herodotus, story from, 53. 

Hesperides, an inference from, 
145. 

Holden, Mr. Shearjashub, Pre- 
ceptor of Jaalam Academy, 
127 — his knowledge of Greek 
limited, ib. — a heresy of his, 
ib. — leaves a fund to propa- 
gate it, 128. 

HoUis, Ezra, goes to a Cornwal- 
lis, 56. 



Hollow, "why men providen- 
tially so constructed, 84. 

Homer, a phrase »f, cited, 109^ 

Horners, democratic ones^ 
plums left for, 89 

Howell, James, Esq., story 
told by, 83 — letters of, com- 
mended, 120. 

Human rights out of order otk 
the floor of Congress, 101. 

Humbug, ascription of praise- 
to, 114 — general believed in, 

ib. 

Husbandry, instance of bad, 
70. 



I. 



Icarius, Penelope's father, 74'.. 

Infants, prattlintrs of, curious^ 
observation concerning, 53. 

Information wanted (univer- 
sally, but especially afc 
page), 120. 



J. 



Jaalam Centre, Anglo-Saxons-- 
unjustly suspected by the 
young ladies there, 63 — 
"Independent Blunder- 
buss," stringe conduct of 
editor of, 108 — public meet- 
iuii at, 121. 

Jaalam Point, lighthouse on, 
charge of prospectively of- 
fered to Mr. H. Biglow, 125. 
— meetinghouse ornament- 
ed with imaginary clock, 147. 

Jakes, Captain, 164 — reprovecfe 
for avarice, 165. 



184 



INDEX. 



James llie Fourth of Scots, ex- 
peiiment by, 54. 

Jarna^in, Mr., his opinion of 
the coiiipleteness of North- 
ern education, 103. 

Jerome, Saint, his list of sa- 
cred writers, 120. 

.Job, Book of, 51 — Chappelow 
on, 109. 

Johnson, Mr. communicates 
some infelli<ienoe, 104, 

-Jonah, Ihe inevitable destiny 
of, 105 — probably studied in- 
ternal «^conomy of the ceta- 
cea, 119. 

Jortin. Dr., cited, 81, 93, note. 

Judea, every thing not known 
there, 73. 

.Juvenal, a saying of, 92, note. 



Kay, Sir, the, of modern chiv- 
alry, who, 99. 

Key, brazen one, 98. 

IKeziah, Aunt, proJbund obser- 
vation of, 45. 

Kinderliook, 151. 

Kingdom Come, march to, 
easy, 133. 

Kouigsmark, Count, 52. 



would find less sport therein 
now, 99. 

Letters classed, 120 — their 
shape, 121 — of candidates, 
125— often fatal, 126. 

Lewis Philip, a scourger of 
young native Americans, 93 
— commiserated (though not 
deserving it), 93, note. 

Liberator, a newspaper, con- 
demned by implication, 78. 

Liberty unwholesome for men 
of certain complexions, 110. 

Lignum vilse, agiftof this val- 
uable wood proposed, 64. 

Longinus recommends swear- 
ing, 55, note (Fuseli did same 
thing). 

Long sweetening recommend- 
ed, 134. 

Lost arts, one sorrowfully ad- 
ded to list of, 169. 

Louis the Eleventh of France, 
some odd trees of his, 145. 

Lowell, Mr. J. R., unaccoun- 
table silence of, 75. 

Luther, Martin, his first ap- 
pearance as Europa, 64. 

Lyttelton, Lord, his letters an 
imposition, 120. 

M. 



Lamb, Charles, his epistolary 
excellence, 120. 

Latimer, Bishop, episcopizes 
Satan, 51. 

Latin tongue, curious informa- 
tion concerning, 75. 

ILauncelot, Sir, a trusser of 
giants formerly, perhaps 



Macrobii, their diplomacy, 128. 
Mahomet, got nearer Sinai 

than some, 109, 
Mahound, his filthy gobbets, 

65. 
Mangum, Mr., speaks to the 

point, 101. 
Manichaian, excellently con« 

futed, 96. 
Man-trees, grew where, 144. 



INDEX. 



185 



Mares'-nests, finders of, benev- 
olent, 119. 

Marshfield, 151, 158 

Martin, Mr. yawiu used to 
vote for him, 160. 

Mason and Dixon's line, slaves 
north of, 101. 

Mass, the, its duty defined, 101. 

Massachusetts on her knees, 50 
— something mentioned in 
counectit)n with, worthy the 
attention of tailors, 86 — 
citizen of, baked, boiled, and 
roasted (nefcmdum !) , 139. 

Masses, the, used as butter by 
some, 88. 

M. C, an invertebrate animal, 
91. 

Mechanics' Fair, reflections 
suggested at, 131. 

Mentor, letters of, dreary, 120. 

Mephistopheles at a nonplus, 
105. 

Mexican blood, its effect in 
raising price of cloth, 148. 

Mexican polka, 66. 

Mexicans charged with various 
breaches of etiquette, 63 — 
kind feelings beaten into 
them, 114. 

Mexico, no glory in overcom- 
ing, 87. 

Military glory spoken disre- 
spectfully of, 59, note — mili- 
tia treated still worse, ib. 

Milk-trees, growing still, 144. 

Mills for manufacturing gab- 
ble, how driven, 95. 

Milton, an unconscious pla- 
giary, 85, note — a Latin verse 
of, cited, 110. 

Missions, a profitable kind of, 
111. 



Monarch, a pagan, probably 
not favored in philosophical 
experiments, 53. 

Money-trees desirable, 145 — 
that they once existed shown 
to be variously probable, 
145. 

Montaigne, a communicative 
old Gascon, 119. 

Monterey, battle of, its singu- 
lar chromatic effect on a 
snecies of two-headed eagle, 
93. 

Moses held up vainly as an ex- 
ample, 109 — construed by 
Joe Smith, 109. 

Myths, how to interpret read- 
ily, 128. 



N. 

Naboths, Popish ones, how dis- 
tinguished, 67. 

Nation, rights of, proportion- 
ate to size, 59. 

National pudding, its effect on 
the organs of speech, a 
curious physiological fact, 
67. 

Nephelim, not yet extinct, 169. 

New England overpoweriugly 
honored, 90 — wants no more 
speakers, ih. — done brown 
by whom, ib. — her experi- 
ence in beans beyond 
Cicero's, 128. 

Newspaper, the, wonderful, 114 
— a strolling theatre, 115 — 
thoughts suggested by tear- 
ing wrapper of, 116 — a vacant 
sheet, ib. — a sheet in which 
a vision was let down, 117-^ 



186 



INDEX. 



wntpper to a bar of soap, ib. 
— a cheap impromptu plat- 
ter, ib. 

New York, Letters from, com- 
mended, 120. 

Next life, what, 108. 

Niggers, 48 — area of abusing, 
extended, 86 — Mr. Sawin's 
opinions of, 162. 

Ninepence a day low for mur- 
der, 56. 

No, a monosyllable, 67 — hard 
to utter, ib. 

Noah, inclosed letter in bottle, 
probably, 119, 

Nomas, Lapland, what, 146. 

North, has no business, 101 — 
bristling, crowded off roost, 
125. 

North Bend, geese inhumanly 
treated at, 126 — mentioned, 
151. 

North star, a proposition to in- 
dict, 105. 



O. 



Off, ox, 123. 

Office, miraculous transforma- 
tion in character of, 63 — 
Antilo-Saxon, come very near 
being anathematized, 64. 

O'Phace, Increase D., Esq., 
speech of, 82. 

Oracle of Fools, still respect- 
fully consulted, 83. 

Orion, becomes commonplace, 

n7. 

Orrery, Lord, his letters 

(lord !), 120. 
Ostracism, curious species of, 

83. 



P. 

Palestine, 64. 

Palfrey, Hon. J. G., 83, 90, 92 
(a worthy representative of 
Massachu-settis). 

Pautagruel recommends a pop- 
ular oracle, 83. 

Panurge, his interview with 
Goatsnose, 129. 

Papists, female, slain by zeal- 
ous Protestant bombshell, 
148. 

Paralipomenon, a man sus- 
pected of being, 126. 

Paris, liberal principles safe as 
far away as, 110. 

Parliament um Indodorum sitting 
in permanence, 83. 

Past, the, a good nurse, 98. 

Patience, sister, quoted, 58. 

Payuims, their throats propa- 
gandistically cut, 65. 

Penelope, her wise choice, 74. 

People, soft enough, 112 — want 
correct ideas, 142. 

Pepin, King, 121. 

Periwig, 125. 

Persius, a pithy saying of, 89 
note. 

Pescara, Marquis, saying of, 
52. 

Peter, Saint, a letter of (post 
mortem), 121. 

Pharisees, <>|>probriously re- 
ferred to, 110. 

Philippe, Louis, in pea-jacket, 
115. 

Phlegyas quoted, 106. 

Phrygian language, whether 
Adam spoke it, 53. 

Pilgrims, the, 87. 

Pillows, constitutional, 92. 



INDEX. 



18' 



Pinto, Mr., some letters of his 
commended, 120. 

Pisgah, an impromptu one, 
146. 

Platform, party, a convenient 
one, 142. 

Plato, supped with, 119 — his 
man, 126. 

Pleiades, the, not enough es- 
teemed, 117. 

Pliny, his letters not admired, 
120. 

Plotinus, a story of, 99. 

Plymouth Rock, Old, a Con- 
vention wrecked on, 87. 

Point Tribulation, Mr. Sawin 
wrecked on, 144. 

Poles, exile, whether crop of 
beans depends on, 61, note. 

Polk, President, synonymous 
with our country, 72 — cen- 
sured, 87 — in danger of being 
crushed, 88. 

Polka, Mexican, 66. 

Pomp, a runaway slave, his 
nest, 163 — hypocritically 
groans like white man, 163 
— blind to Christian privi- 
leges. 164 — his society valued 
at fifty dollars, ib. — his 
treachery, 165 — takes Mr. 
Sawin prisoner, 166 — cruelly 
makes him work, ib. — puts 
himself illegally under his 
tuition, 167 — dismisses him 
with contumelious epithets, 
ib. 

Pontifical bull, a tamed one, 
64. 

Pope, his verse excellent, 
53. 

Pork, refractory in boiling, 
64. 



Portugal, Alphonso the Sixth 
of, a monster, 169. 

Post, Boston, 75 — shaken visi- 
bly, 77 — bad guidepost, ib, 
— too swift, ib. — edited by a 
colonel , ib. — who is presumed 
officially in Mexico, ib. — re* 
ferred to, 94. 

Pot-hooks, death in, 129. 

Preacher, an oruameuial sym- 
bol, 109 — a breeder of dog- 
mas, ib. — earnestness of, im- 
portant, 169. 

Present, considered as an an- 
nalist, 109 — not long wonder- 
ful, 117. 

Presiden t, slaveholding natural 
to, 113 — must be a Sotithern 
resident, 142 — nuist own a 
nigger, ib. 

Principle, exposure spoils it,, 
85. 

Principles, bad, when less 
harmful, 70. 

Prophecy, a notable one, 93. 

Proviso, bitterly spoken of, 123. 

Prudence, sister, her idiosyn- 
cratic tea{)ot, 136. 

Psammeticus, an experiment 
of, 53. 

Public opinion a blind and 
drunken iiuide, 67 — nudges 
Mr. Wilbur's elbow, ib. — 
ticklers of, 88. 

Pvthagoras a bean-hater, whv 
'128." 

Pythagoreans, fish reverenced 
by, why, 97. 



Q. 



Quixote, Don, 100. 



INDEX. 



E. 



Hag, one of sacred college, 67. 

Eantoul, Mr., talks loudly, 57 
— pious reasons for not en- 
listing, ib. 

JRecruiting sergeant, Devil sup- 
posed the first, 51. 

Uepresentatives' Chamber, 97. 

Ehinothism, society for pro- 
moting, 118. 

Ehyme, whetlier natural not 
considered, 53. 

Eib, an infrangible one, 134. 

Richard the First of England, 
his Christian fervor, 64. 

Riches conjectured to have legs 
as well as wings, 105. 

Eobiuson, Mr. John P., his 
opinions fully stated, 70-73. 

Rocks, pocket full of, 135. 

Uough and Ready, 156 — a wig, 
158 — a kind of scratch, ib. 

Eussian eagle turns Prussian 
blue, 93. 



S. 



'Sabbath, breach of, 66. 

Sabellianisuj, one accused of, 
126. 

Saltillo, unfavorable view of, 
59. 

Salt-river, in Mexican, what, 
59. 

Samuel, Uncle, riotous, 92 — 
yet has qualities demanding 
reverence, 110 — a good pro- 
vider for his family, 112 — au 
exorbitant bill of, 148. 

Sansculottes, draw their wine 
before drinking, 104. 



Santa Anna, his expensive leg, 
140. 

Satan, never wants attorneys, 
64 — an expert talker by signs, 
ib. — a successful fisherman 
with little or no bait, 65 — 
cunning fetch of, 69 — dislikes 
ridicule, 75 — ought not to 
have credit of ancient oracles, 
93, note. 

Satirist, incident to certain 
dangers, 69. 

Savages, Canadian, chance of 
redemption offered to, 168. 

Sawin, B., Esquire, his letter 
not written in verse, 53 — a 
native of Jaalau), 54 — not 
regular attendant on Rev. 
Mr. Wilbur's preaching, ib. 
— a fool, ib. — his statements 
trustworthy, 55 — his orni- 
thological tastes, ib. — letter 
from, 56, 130, 151 — his curi- 
ous discovery in regard to 
bayonets, 56, 57 — displays 
proper family pride, 58 — 
modestly confesses himself 
less wise than the Queen of 
Sheba, 61 — the old Adam in, 
peeps out, 63 — a miles emeri- 
tus^ 130 — is made text for a 
sermon, ib — loses a leg, 132 
—an eye, 133— left hand, 134 
— four fingers of right hand, 
ib. — has six or more ribs 
broken, ib. — a rib of his in- 
frangible, ih. — allows a cer- 
tain amount of preteiite 
greenness in hi ju self, 134, 
135 — his share of spoil limit- 
ed, 135 — his opinion of Mex- 
ican climate, 136 — acquires 
property of a certain sort, 



1 



INDEX. 



ISO* 



137 — his experience of glory, 
138, 139 — stands sentry, and 
puns thereupon, 139 — under- 
goes martyrdom in some of 
its most painful forms, 140 
— enters the candidating bus- 
iness, lb. — modestly states 
the (avail) abilities which 
qualify him for high politi- 
cal station, 140-143 — has no 
principles, 140 — a peaceman, 
lb. — unpledged, 141 — has no 
objections to owning peculiar 
property, but would not like 
to monopolize the truth, 143 
— his account with glory, 
144 — a selfish motive hinted 
in, ib. — sails for Eldorado, 
ib. — shipwrecked on a meta- 
phorical promontory, ib. — 
parallel between, and Rev. 
Mr. Wilbur (not Plutarch- 
ian), 146 — conjectured to 
have bathed in river Selem- 
nus, 151 — loves plough wise- 
ly, but not too well, ib. — a 
foreign mission probably ex- 
pected by, 152 — unanimously 
nominated for presidency', 
153 — his country's father-in- 
law, 154 — nobly emulates 
Cincinuatus, 155 — is not a 
crooked stick, ib. — advises 
his adherents, 155 — views of, 
on present state of politics, 
155-162 — popular enthusi- 
asm for, at Bellers's, and its 
disagreeable consequences, 
156 — inhuman treatment of, 
by Bellers, 157 — his opinion 
of the two parti*'s, 158 — 
H«Tees with Mr. Webster, 
159 — his antislavery zeal, 



160 — his proper self-respect, 
ib. — his unaffected piety, 
161 — his not intemperate 
temperance, ib. — a thrilling 
adventure of, 162-167 — his 
prudence and economy, 163: 
— bound to Captain Jakes, 
but regains his freedom, 164 
— is taken prisoner, 165, 166> 
— ignominiously treated, 166, 
167 — his consequent resolu- 
tion, 167. 

Sayres, a martyr, 98. 

Scaliger, sayii'g of, 70. 

Scarabseus jjHuIarius, 60. 

Scott, General, his claims to- 
the presidency, 77, 79. 

Scythians, their diplomacy 
commended, 128, 

Seamen, colored, sold, 50. 

Selemnus, a sort of Letheam 
river, 151. 

Senate, debate in, made read- 
able, 98. 

Seneca, saying of, 69 — another, 
93 — overrated by a saint 
(but see Lord Bolingbroke's-. 
opinion of, in a letter tO' 
Dean Swift), 120— his letter* 
not commended, ib. — a son 
of Rev. Mr. Wilbur, 147. 

Serbouinn, bog of literature, 97. 

Sextons, demand for, 58 — hero- 
ic ofiQcial devotion of one, 
168. 

Shaking fever, considered as- 
an employer, 137. 

Shakspeare, a good reporter,, 
82. 

Sham, President, honest, 87. 

Sheba, Queen of. 61. 

Sheep, none of Rev. Mr. Wil- 
bur's turned wolves, 54. 



190 



INDEX. 



Shem, Scriptural curse of, 168. 

Show, natural to love it,. 59, 
note. 

Silver spoon born in Democ- 
racy's mouth, what, 89. 

Sinai, suiters outrages, 109. 

Sin, wilderness of, modern, 
what, 109. 

Skin, bole in, strange taste of 
some for, 139. 

Slaughter, whether God 
strengthen us for, 65. 

Slaughterers and soldiers com- 
pared, 149. 

Slaughtering nowadays is 
slaughtering, 149. 

Slavery, of no color, 48 — cor- 
ner stone of liberty, 94 — also 
keystone, 101 — last crumb of 
Eden, 105 — a Jonah, 105 — 
an institution, 124 — a private 
State concern, 163. 

Smith, Joe, used as a transla- 
tion, 109. 

Smith, John, an interesting 
character, 118. 

Smith. Mr., fears entertained 
for, 107— dined with, 119. 

Smith, N. B., his magnanim- 
ity, 115. 

Soandso, Mr., the great, de- 
fines his position, 115. 

Sol, the fisherman, 60 — sound- 
ness of respirator organs hy- 
pothetically attributed to, ib. 

Solon, a saying of, 68. 

South Carolina, futile attempt 
to anchor, 119. 

Spanish, to walk, what, 61. 

Speech-making, an abuse of 
gift of speech, 95. 

Star, north, subject to indict- 
ment, whether, 105. 



Store, cheap cash, a wicked 
fraud, 146. 

Strong, Governor Caleb, a pa- 
triot, 73. 

Swearing, commended as a fig- 
ure of speech, 55, note. 

Swift, Dean, threadbare saying 
of, 76. 



T. 

Tag, elevated to the Cardinal- 
ate, 103. 

Taxes, direct, advantages of, 
146, 147. 

Taylor zeal, its origin, 156 — 
General, greased by Mr, 
Choate, 159, 160. 

Thanks, get lodged, loS. 

Thirty-nine articles might be 
made serviceable, 66. 

Thor, a foolish ai tempt of, 99. 

Thumb, General Thomas, a 
valuable member of soiietv, 
91. 

Thunder, supposed in e: s\ cir- 
cumstances, 134. 

Thynne, Mr., murdered, 52. 

Time, an innocent ])ers(ii,:ige 
to swear by, 55 — u scene- 
shifter, 116. 

Toms, Peeping, 118. 

Trees, various kinds of extra- 
ordinary ones, 144 145, 

Trowbridge, William, mariner, 
adventure ot. 6G. 

Truth and falsehood stnrt from 
same ])oinl. 69 — iin'h invul- 
nerable to satiiH, ib. — com- 
pared to a river, 82 — of fic- 
tion sometimes truer than 
fact. ib. — told plainly passijn. 



INDEX. 



191 



Tuileries, exciting scene at, 

93. 
TuUy, a saying of 85, note. 
Tweedledee, gospel according 

to, 110. 
Tweedledum, great principles 

of, 110. 



U. 

Ulysses, husband of Penelope, 

74 — borrows money, 146. 

(For full particulars of, see 

Homer and Daute.) 
University, triennial catalogue 

of, 79. ■ 



V. 

Van Buren fails of gaining Mr. 

Sawiu's confidence, 160 — his 

son John reproved, 161. 
Van, Old, plan to set up, 160. 
Venetians, invented something 

once, 146. 
Vices, cardinal, sacred conclave 

of, 67. 
Victoria, Queen, her natural 

terror, 93. 
Vratz, Captain, a Pomeranian, 

singular views of, 52. 



W, 

Walpole, Horace, classed, 118 
— his letters praised, 119. 

"Walthara Plain, Cornwallis at, 
56. 

Walton, punctilious in his in- 
tercourse with fishes, 67. 



War, abstract, horrid, 123 — its 
hoppers, grist of, what, 138. 

Wartou, Thomas, a story of, 
80. 

Washinjjton, charge brought 
against, 154. 

Washington, city of, climatic 
influence of, on coats, 86 — 
mentioned, 98 — grand jury 
of, 105. 

Washiugtons, two hatched at 
a time by improved ma- 
chine, 154. 

Water, Taunton, proverbially 
weak, 162. 

Water-trees, 145. 

Webster, some sentiments of, 
commended by Mr. Saw in, 
159. 

Westcott, Mr., his horror, 104. 

Whig party, has a large throat, 
77 — but query as to swallow- 
ing spurs, 160. 

White-house, 125. 

Wife-trees, 145. 

Wilbur, Rev. Homer, A. M., 
consulted, 43 — his instruc- 
tions to his flock, 54 — a prop- 
osition of his Protestant 
bombshells, 67 — his elbow 
nudged, 67 — his notions of 
satire, 69 — some opinions of 
his quoted with apparent ap- 
proval by Mr. Biglow, 73 — 
treographical speculations of, 
73 — a justice of the peace, 
ih. — a letter of, 75 — a Latin 
pun of, 75 — runs a<:ain>t a 
post without injury, 76 — 
does not seek ii'^toriety 
(whatever some malignants 
may affirm), 78 — fits youths 
for college, 79 — a chaplain 



192 



INDEX. 



during late war with En- 
gland, 80 — a shrewd obser- 
vation of, 81 — some curious 
speculations of, 95-97 — his 
martello-tower, 95 — forgets 
he is not in pulpit, 109, 130- 
132 — extracts from sermon 
of, 108, 114 — interested in 
John Smith, 118 — his views 
concerning present state of 
letters, 118-121 — a stratagem 
of, 126 — ventures two hun- 
dred and fourth interpreta- 
tion of Beast in Apocalypse, 
127-christens Hon.B. Sawin, 
then an infant, 130 — an addi- 
tion to our sylva proposed 
by, 144 — curious and in- 
structive adventure of, 146- 
147 — his account with an un- 
natural uncle, 148 — his un- 
comfortable imagination, 149 
— speculations concerning 
Cincinnatus, 151, 152 — con- 
fesses digressive tendency of 
mind, 168 — goes to work ou 
sermon (not without fear 



that his readers will dub 
him with a reproachful epi- 
thet like that with which 
Isaac Allertou, a Mayflower 
man, revenges himself on a 
delinquent debtor of his, 
calling him in his will, and 
thus holding him up to 
posterity, as "John Peter- 
son, TheBoke"), 170. 

Wilbur, Mrs., an invariable 
rule of, 79 — her profile, 79. 

Wildbore, a vernacular one, 
how to escape, 97. 

Wind, the, a good Samaritan, 
131. 

Wooden leg, remarkable for so- 
briety, 132 — never eats pud- 
ding, 134. 

Wright, Colonel, providenti- 
ally rescued, 60. 

Wrong, abstract, safe to op- 
pose, 88. 

Z. 

Zack, Old, 155. 



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